Aims: We assessed prospectively the association between occurrence of post-discharge non-CABG-related TIMI major and minor bleeding and post-treatment platelet reactivity in patients with non-ST elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE ACS).
Methods and results: Five hundred and ninety-seven consecutive patients admitted with NSTE ACS were prospectively included. Between hospital discharge and one month follow-up, we observed 16 (2.7%) non-CABG-related TIMI haemorrhagic complications including five (0.84%) major and 11 (1.8%) minor bleeds. Patients with bleeding had significantly lower post-treatment values of ADP-induced aggregation (43+/-14% versus. 56+/-19%, p=0.002) and platelet reactivity index VASP (43+/-14% versus 54+/-23%; p=0.04) and a trend for lower values of arachidonic acid-induced aggregation (2.4+/-5.4 versus 13+/-21; p=0.27). After stratification by quartiles based on post-treatment ADP-induced platelet aggregation, we identified patients in the first quartile as hyper-responders with very low post-treatment platelet reactivity, below <40%. The risk of TIMI major and minor bleeding was significantly higher in the first quartile of hyper-responders than in the others quartiles: 10 (6.6%) versus six (1.4%), p=0.001.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that assessment of post-treatment platelet reactivity might be used to detect hyper-responders to antiplatelet therapy with higher risk of non-CABG related bleeding and tailor antiplatelet therapy according to both ischaemic and bleeding risk.