Assessment of the use of clopidogrel associated with gastroprotective medications in outpatients.

OBJECTIVES Check the progress of hospitalization and death of the patients that use clopidogrel associated with omeprazole and the patients that do not. METHODS A retrospective cohort was conducted between January 2007 and November 2009 to evaluate patients that were using clopidogrel in association or not with omeprazole. RESULTS The study included 2823 patients. Of these patients, 36% were female and 64% were male, the mean age was 63 years. Regarding the association of drugs for gastric protection, omeprazole was prescribed to 45%, ranitidine for 9%, while 46% of patients were not receiving gastroprotective medication. As for the analysis by groups, 35.5% of the omeprazole group was hospitalized after starting treatment with clopidogrel, compared with 25.7% in the group without omeprazole. In evaluating the deaths among patients using clopidogrel in the study period, we found the occurrence of 36 deaths, 22 in the omeprazole group and 14 in the other group. CONCLUSIONS In our study, we did not evaluate the clinical status of the patients and the rates of reinfarction. And, as our study data showed, there are not any statistically differences between the groups that used clopidogrel associated with omeprazole, with ranitidine or that did not use any gastroprotective medication.