Aims: Compared with placebo, abciximab has been associated with mortality reduction at late follow-up. The TARGET trial was performed to test whether tirofiban and abciximab provide similar efficacy outcomes among patients undergoing non-emergent, stent-based percutaneous coronary intervention. We report here the 1-year mortality of the study population.
Methods and results: In 18 countries at 149 hospitals, 4,809 patients undergoing elective or urgent stent implantation were randomly assigned a bolus and infusion of tirofiban or abciximab. Ischaemic events were assessed at 30 days and 6 months and mortality was assessed at 1 year. We previously reported that abciximab was superior to tirofiban considering the composite rate of death or myocardial infarction at 30 days among all patients and at 6 months among those with an acute coronary syndrome (ACS). At 1-year follow-up death occurred in 46 (1.9%) patients who received tirofiban and 42 (1.7%) patients who received abciximab (hazard ratio 1.10, 95% CI 0.72-1.67; P=0.660). Mortality rates for patients with ACS were 2.3% with tirofiban vs. 2.2% with abciximab (hazard ratio 1.03, 95% CI 0.64-1.67; P=0.897) and those without ACS were 1.4 vs. 1.0% (hazard ratio 1.32, 95% CI 0.56-3.13; P=0.530).
Conclusion: At 1 year, tirofiban provided a similar level of survival benefit compared with abciximab.