As published in the New England Journal of Medicine's online edition, the TRITON-TIMI 38 study of 13,608 patients with acute coronary syndromes compared prasugrel against clopidogrel, both in combination with aspirin, and found that, as a more potent anti-platelet agent, prasugrel reduced the combined rate of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke (12.1% for clopidogrel vs. 9.9% for prasugrel). These favorable results were obtained at the expense of increasing the rate of serious bleeding (1.4%, vs. 0.9% in the clopidogrel group) and fatal bleeding (0.4% vs. 0.1%).[1] This resulted in no overall mortality difference between treatment groups.
From the editorial in the NEJM, "In TRITON–TIMI 38, for each death from cardiovascular causes prevented by the use of prasugrel as compared with clopidogrel, approximately one additional episode of fatal bleeding was caused by prasugrel".[2]
References
^ Wiviott SD, Braunwald E, McCabe CH, et al. (2007). "Prasugrel versus clopidogrel in patients with acute coronary syndromes". N Engl J Med357 (20): 2001–15. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa0706482.