Purpose: To evaluate the combination of a platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa complex receptor inhibitor and urokinase for treatment of recent (<or=6 weeks) arterial occlusion of the legs.
Materials and methods: Seventy patients with lower extremity arterial occlusion of less than 6 weeks duration were randomly separated into two treatment groups: urokinase plus abciximab or urokinase plus placebo. Primary end points were the rate of major complications at 30 days after randomization and the rates of amputation-free survival and survival without open surgery or major amputation at follow-up of 90 days. Two readers unaware of the patients' treatment group assignments analyzed digital subtraction angiograms as they related to the study end points, with a final consensus reading.
Results: Thrombolysis relative to clot length was faster in the urokinase-plus-abciximab group (odds ratio, 0.52; 95% CI: 0.35, 0.76; P < .001). There were no procedure-related deaths or intracranial hemorrhages, but the rate of nonfatal major bleeding was higher with urokinase plus abciximab (four of 50 patients) than with urokinase alone (none of 20 patients; P = .32). At 90 days, amputation-free survival was 96% (48 of 50 patients) in the urokinase-plus-abciximab group compared with 80% (16 of 20 patients) in the urokinase alone group. The hazard ratio for the two Kaplan-Meier curves was 0.42 (95% CI: 0.16, 0.96; P = .04).
Conclusion: In patients with lower extremity arterial occlusion who were undergoing urokinase thrombolysis, adjunctive abciximab treatment resulted in faster thrombus dissolution and improved amputation-free survival, despite an increase in major bleeding.