CARLA K. JOHNSON, "Heart drug backfires, study says", Chicago-Sun
Times, February 7, 2007,
Link: http://www.***.com/ ,CST-NWS-
heart07.article

A drug widely used to prevent excessive bleeding during heart surgery
appears to raise the risk of dying in the five years afterward by
nearly 50 percent, an international study found.

The researchers said replacing the drug -- aprotinin, sold by Bayer AG
under the brand name Trasylol -- with other, cheaper medications for a
year would prevent 10,000 deaths over the next five years.

The findings were more bad news for Trasylol: The same scientists
found the drug raised the risk of kidney failure, heart attacks and
strokes in a study published last year. Most of the deaths in the new
study were related to those problems.

Bayer rips researchers

Bayer said in a statement that the findings are unreliable because
Trasylol tends to be used in more complex operations and the
researchers' statistical analysis did not fully account for the
complexity of the surgery cases.

Nevertheless, the drug company said it will ''work with regulatory
agencies and external experts in the field to further evaluate the
findings.''

Dr. Dennis Mangano of the nonprofit Ischemia Research and Education
Foundation, lead author of both studies, said: ''I believe that for
the vast majority of coronary bypass patients the drug should not be
used.'' But he said the drug should remain on the market because some
very high-risk patients may benefit from it.