Weill Cornell Medicine will lead an international 700-patient study to evaluate the impact of one-month dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with ticagrelor plus aspirin following elective coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), also known as the ODIN trial.
Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fall Project Grant for seven years at $3 million CAD, this prospective, multi-center, and open-label randomized trial will be run through the Randomization of Single vs Multiple Arterial Grafts (ROMA) Trial network. Eligible bypass surgery patients will receive either ticagrelor and aspirin for one month followed by monotherapy with aspirin for 11 months or aspirin alone for the full 12 months. Dr. Mario Gaudino, Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Professor in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Weill Cornell Medicine and cardiothoracic surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center is the co-principal investigator along with Dr. Mark Ruel, Michael Pitfield professor and chairman, head, and endowed chair of research in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute; Dr. Björn Redfors, associate professor at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg and consultant cardiologist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital; and Dr. Sigrid Sandner, associate professor of surgery at the Medical University of Vienna and director of the Coronary Revascularization Program at the Department of Cardiac Surgery, Vienna General Hospital – Medical University of Vienna.
Compared to aspirin alone, 12-month DAPT with ticagrelor plus aspirin can reduce the risk of graft failure following CABG but also increase the risk of bleeding. While the benefits of adding ticagrelor, an antiplatelet medicine that helps prevent harmful blood clots, to aspirin could be expected to be achieved primarily in the first month after surgery, the added risk of bleeding remains constant over time. The ODIN trial will be the first of its kind to evaluate whether short-term DAPT with ticagrelor followed by aspirin alone can optimize the prevention of graft clotting while also reducing the risk of bleeding.