Local researchers said they confirmed the antiplatelet efficacy of Yuyu Pharma’s Yuclid (ingredient: ticlopidine, ginkgo leaf extract) in patients who underwent carotid artery stenting (CAS).
Frontiers in Neurology, an international journal, published the study.
The study aimed to compare the incidence of ischemic legions between patients with conventional therapy clopidogrel and the others who switched to Yuclid. All the patients had resistance to clopidogrel before the CAS procedure.
The researchers conducted the test at six hospitals – Samsung Medical Center, Yeungnam University Medical Center, Gangnam Severance Hospital, Chonnam National University Medical School, Busan National University Hospital, and Sungkyunkwan University Samsung Changwon Hospital – for four years from 2014 to 2017.
They recruited 42 patients who received either clopidogrel or ticlopidine-ginkgo treatment for 24 weeks after CAS and checked their brain MRI and transcranial duplex (TCD) ultrasound monitoring.
The result showed that the Yuclid treatment group had a significant 21 percent [6.0-35.0] increase in P2Y12 Reaction Unit, a measure to indicate the antiplatelet effect, while the clopidogrel group had 0 percent change [-0.3~3.0].
The result signals that Yuclid had a stronger antiplatelet effect than clopidogrel in clopidogrel-resistant patients, Yuyu Pharma said.
However, there was no significant difference in the two groups in myocardial infarction risk or incidence of adverse events after CAS.
Bang Oh-young, a professor at neurology department of Samsung Medical Center, who led the study, said it was important to prescribe a customized antiplatelet drug for patients because there was no clear clinical guideline for drug-resistant patients.
“In clopidogrel-resistant patients, we confirmed that Yuclid (ticlopidine plus ginkgo extract) improved antiplatelet effects,” he said.
Yuyu Pharma developed Yuclid and released it in 2008. It is used for chronic arterial occlusive disease, ischemic cerebrovascular disorder, ulcer associated with coronary artery disease, ischemic symptoms such as pain and coldness, and prevention of subacute thrombosis after intracoronary stent placement.
In May 2018, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety designated Yuclid as the nation’s one of the 315 essential drugs.