ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, August 1, 1996               TAG: 9608010077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: B-7  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: DALLAS
SOURCE: Associated Press 

HEART ATTACK DRUG IS SHELVED TESTS UNCOVER KIDNEY DAMAGE

A new substance developed to help stop heart attacks in progress has shown promise in hospital studies but also causes kidney damage, and researchers are going back to the laboratory.

Patients given poloxamer 188, also known by the brand name RheothRx, had smaller heart attacks and less heart muscle damage, and their hearts pumped more efficiently than people who received a dummy medication, according to a study published today in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. All of the patients were given standard clot-busting drugs as well.

But kidney damage developed in some participants in the study and in two larger clinical trials that followed.

As a result, Glaxo Wellcome has shelved development of RheothRx as a heart attack treatment, said Dr. Gary L. Schaer, one of the study's authors and director of cardiac catheterization at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.

However, another company, Cytrx Corp. of Norcross, Ga., is trying to come up with a form of RheothRx that will be less damaging to the kidneys.

``The compound needs to be reformulated and retested,'' Shaer said.

The study took place at 11 hospitals around the country. Seventy-five heart attack patients were given poloxamer 188, and 39 got a placebo.

By the time the poloxamer 188 patients went home, their hearts were pumping more strongly than those who had received the placebo, Schaer said.

Poloxamer 188 is a ``surfactant,'' or a soap-like agent that reduces the surface tension of liquids. Schaer said poloxamer 188 helps the blood flow along the blood vessel wall.

``We think that the RheothRx is working with the clot-busting drug to get the artery open faster,'' Schaer said.

Reversible kidney problems occurred in four of the 75 patients given the surfactant, Schaer said. The two more recent trials also found a higher risk of kidney damage, and those studies were halted as a result, he said.

Three of the 75 patients who got the poloxamer 188 suffered strokes, compared with one of the 39 who received a placebo. The difference could be a matter of chance, but it's still reason for concern, Schaer said.

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