An injectable form of the clot-fighting drug heparin can be safely used at home as an effective treatment for blood clots in the legs, according to two studies to be published Thursday.
Typically, heparin is given for five days in the hospital through an intravenous tube. But the new form of the drug, known as low-molecular-weight heparin, stays intact in the body longer and its pattern of breaking up clots or preventing new clots is more predictable.The two studies will be in the New England Journal of Medicine. The first, led by Dr. Mark Levine of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, used the new injectable drug called enoxaparin and sold by Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc. under the brand name Lovenox.
The study of 500 patients found the likelihood of having a blood clot reappear after treatment began was virtually identical regardless of whether the patient was getting regular heparin in the hospital or enoxaparin at home.
It also looked at the risk of excessive bleeding, which can be caused by anti-clotting drugs, finding no difference.
The enoxaparin treatment is capable of "increasing the convenience for the patient and reducing the cost to the health-care system substantially," the team concluded.
The second study, led by Dr. Maria Koopman of the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, looked at a similar low-molecular-weight heparin called nodroparin-Ca, sold under the brand name Fraxiparine by Sanofi Winthrop.