ATHENA Clinical Results for Dronedarone (Multaq(R)) Highlighted at the World Cardiolog...( BUENOS AIRES Argentina May 21 /- ...),Health

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, May 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today at the World Congress of Cardiology (WCC), the press conference entitled "New Perspectives in Atrial Fibrillation Management" chaired by John Camm, Professor of Clinical Cardiology, St George's University of London, highlighted the importance of the newly announced ATHENA clinical trial results, as the way forward in the future management of Atrial fibrillation, the most common form of cardiac arrhythmia.

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"ATHENA is truly a landmark trial, that marks a paradigm change for the management of atrial fibrillation," said Prof Christopher Cannon, a Senior Investigator in the TIMI Study Group at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the study. "Atrial fibrillation is a very common disease, and our prior treatment options have been focused only on symptom relief and a hope to not do harm, which has been the problem with prior antiarrhythmic drugs. Now, with a highly significant reduction in cardiovascular hospitalisation or death, as well as a 45% reduction in arrhythmic death or 30% cardiovascular death, dronedarone may become a first line treatment of atrial fibrillation."

The ATHENA study results were presented by Prof Stefan Hohnloser last week (15th May 08) at the Heart Rhythm Society's 29th Annual Scientific Sessions in San Francisco, USA. The study results show that dronedarone significantly decreased the risk of cardiovascular hospitalisations or death from any cause by 24% (p=0.00000002), meeting the study's primary endpoint. Results of the primary endpoint were consistent across all the pre-specified clinically relevant subgroups.

The most frequently reported adverse events of Multaq(R) vs. placebo in the ATHENA trial were gastro-intestinal effects (
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