A-Fib Drug Passes New Test

A new sub-analysis of data from the trial known as ROCKET-AF shows that rivaroxaban (Xarelto/Janssen) works as well in patients who have both non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF) and diabetes as in similar AF patients without diabetes.

Reporting in American Heart Journal , Sameer Bansilal, MD, MS, assistant professor of medicine and cardiology at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City said rivaroxaban results showed it is an acceptable alternative to warfarin in these high-risk patients.

According to the research abstract, about 40% of the ROCKET-AF patients (5695 patients) had diabetes.

They tended to be younger, more obese, and to have more persistent AF, but fewer had had previous strokes.

“The relative efficacy of rivaroxaban and warfarin for prevention of stroke and systemic embolism was similar in patients with (1.74 vs. 2.14/100 patient-years, HR 0.82) and without (2.12 vs. 2.32/100 patient-years, HR 0.92) diabetes (interaction p=0.53)” Bansilal wrote.

“The safety of rivaroxaban vs. warfarin regarding major bleeding (HR 1.00 and 1.12 for patients with and without diabetes respectively; interaction p=0.43), major or non-major clinically relevant bleeding (HR 0.98 and 1.09; interaction p=0.17), and intracerebral hemorrhage (HR 0.62 and 0.72; interaction p=0.67) was independent of DM status,” he noted.

According to Janssen, these high-risk patients are becoming more common.