Every 29 seconds, someone in the United States experiences a heart attack.

Because time is critical, victims are rushed to the hospital for lifesaving emergency treatment. Now, a new medication just approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may improve the way heart attacks are treated by providing doctors a faster way of administering the drug.

Southern Regional Medical Center participated in a clinical trial that led to recent approval of a revolutionary new “clot-busting” medication, or thrombolytic, called TNKase.

Ronald Freireich MD, a cardiologist at Southern Regional and Southern Heart Specialists, enrolled heart attack patients in ASSENT 2 (Assessment of the Safety and Efficacy of New Thrombolytic agent), a large, international study that contributed important data about TNKase. The entire study included approximately 17,000 patients from 29 countries. Southern Regional was the only hospital in the metro Atlanta area to take part in this trial.

The trial compared TNKase with Activase (Alteplase, recombinant), commonly known as “t-PA,” a widely-used medication that has been given to more than one million heart attack patients over the last decade, and is the most widely-used thrombolytic for heart attack.

“This trial proves TNKase superior in `clot-busting' without a significant increase in complications such as bleeding and stroke,” said Dr. Freireich.

Several large, worldwide studies have determined that lifesaving heart attack therapies are most beneficial to patients when initiated early in the course of a heart attack. While “clot-buster” agents have revolutionized the treatment of heart attack since their introduction in the late 1980s, many older agents do not allow for fast administration, requiring multiple injections or lengthy infusion through IV tubes. TNKase is the first “clot-buster” administered over five seconds in a single dose.

A heart attack is caused when a blood clot obstructs a coronary artery supplying blood to the heart. This causes an inadequate flow of oxygenated and nutrient-enriched blood and results in the death of a portion of the heart muscle.

Heart attacks strike more than 1.1 million people in the United States and cause nearly 500,000 deaths each year. More than 250,000 people die from heart attacks within one hour of the onset of symptoms and before ever reaching a hospital.

This is why it is important to recognize and respond to the symptoms of a heart attack, which may include uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of the chest that last for more than a few minutes; pain spreading to the shoulders, neck and arms; and chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath.

More important than treating heart attacks, says Dr. Freireich, is to prevent them from occurring.

“Scheduling regular checkups with your doctor, understanding what your cholesterol and blood pressure is so it can be treated if necessary, not smoking, cutting down on salt, and staying active are things everyone can do, not only to avoid heart attack, but to stay healthy in general,” he added.

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