High incidence of acute coronary occlusion in patients without protocol positive ST segment elevation referred to an open access primary angioplasty programme

BACKGROUND: Primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) programmes vary in admission criteria from open referral to acceptance of electrocardiogram (ECG) protocol positive patients only. Rigid criteria may result in some patients with acutely occluded coronary arteries not receiving timely reperfusion therapy. OBJECTIVE: To compare the prevalence of acute coronary occlusion and, in these cases, single time point biomarker estimates of myocardial infarct size between patients presenting with protocol positive ECG changes and those presenting with less diagnostic changes in the primary angioplasty cohort of an open access PPCI programme. METHODS: We retrospectively performed a single centre cross sectional analysis of consecutive patients receiving PPCI between January and August 2008. Cases were categorised according to presenting ECG-group A: protocol positive (ST segment elevation/left bundle branch block/posterior ST elevation myocardial infarction), group B: ST segment depression or T-wave inversion, or group C: minor ECG changes. Clinical characteristics, coronary flow grades and 12 h postprocedure troponin-I levels were reviewed. RESULTS: During the study period there were 513 activations of the PPCI service, of which 390 underwent immediate angiography and 308 underwent PPCI. Of those undergoing PPCI, 221 (72%) were in group A, 41 (13%) in group B and 46 (15%) in group C. Prevalence of coronary occlusion was 75% in group A compared with 73% in group B and 63% in group C. Median 12 h postintervention troponin-I (25th-75th percentile) for those with coronary occlusion was significantly higher in group A patients; 28.9 μg/l (13.2-58.5) versus 18.1 μg/l (6.7-32.4) for group B (p=0.03); and 15.5 μg/l (3.8-22.0) for group C (p<0.001), suggesting greater infarct size in group A. CONCLUSIONS: A number of patients referred to an open access PPCI programme have protocol negative ECGs but myocardial infarction and acute coronary artery occlusion amenable to angioplasty. https://pmj.bmj.com/content/postgradmedj/89/1053/376.full.pdf This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/postgradmedj-2012-13081

Mid-to-long term mortality following surgical versus percutaneous coronary revascularization stratified according to stent subtype: An analysis of 6,682 patients with multivessel disease.

Studies comparing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) have largely been performed in the bare-metal stent (BMS) and first-generation drug eluting stent (F-DES) era. Second-generation DES (S-DES) have shown improved outcomes when compared to F-DES, but data comparing CABG with PCI using S-DES is limited. We compared mortality following CABG versus PCI for patients with multivessel disease and analyzed different stent types.A total of 6,682 patients underwent multivessel revascularization at Harefield Hospital, UK. We stratified CABG patients into single arterial graft (SAG) or multiple arterial grafts (MAG); and PCI patients into BMS, F-DES or S-DES groups. We analyzed all-cause mortality at 5 years.4,388 patients had CABG (n[SAG] = 3,358; n[MAG] = 1,030) and 2,294 patients had PCI (n[BMS] = 416; n[F-DES] = 752; n[S-DES] = 1,126). PCI had higher 5-year mortality with BMS (HR = 2.27, 95% CI:1.70-3.05, p<0.001); F-DES (HR = 1.52, 95% CI:1.14-2.01, p = 0.003); and S-DES (HR = 1.84, 95% CI:1.42-2.38, p<0.001). This was confirmed in inverse probability treatment weighted analyses. When adjusting for both measured and unmeasured factors using instrumental variable analyses, PCI had higher 5-year mortality with BMS (Δ = 15.5, 95% CI:3.6,27.5, p = 0.011) and FDES (Δ = 16.5, 95% CI:6.6,26.4, p<0.001), but had comparable mortality with CABG for PCI with SDES (Δ = 0.9, 95% CI: -9.6,7.9, p = 0.844), and when exclusively compared to CABG patients with SAG (Δ = 0.4, 95% CI: -8.0,8.7, p = 0.931) or MAG (Δ = 4.6, 95% CI: -0.4,9.6, p = 0.931).In this real-world analysis, when adjusting for measured and unmeasured confounding, PCI with SDES had comparable 5-year mortality when compared to CABG. This warrants evaluation in adequately-powered randomized controlled trials

Achieving routine sub 30 minute door-to-balloon times in a high volume 24/7 primary angioplasty center with autonomous ambulance diagnosis and immediate catheter laboratory access

Background In primary angioplasty (primary percutaneous coronary intervention [PPCI]) for acute myocardial infarction, institutional logistical delays can increase door-to-balloon times, resulting in increased mortality.Methods We moved from a thrombolysis (TL) service to 24/7 PPCI for direct access and interhospital transfer in April 2004. Using autonomous ambulance diagnosis with open access to the myocardial infarction center catheter laboratory, we compared reperfusion times and clinical outcomes for the final 2 years of TL with the first 3 years of PPCI.Results Comparison was made between TL (2002-2004, n = 185) and PPCI (2004-2007, n = 704); all times are medians in minutes (interquartile range): for TL, symptom to needle 153 (85-225), call to needle 58 (49-73), first professional contact (FPC) to needle 47 (39-63), door to needle 18 (12-30) (mortality: 7.6% at 30 days, 9.2% at 1 year); for interhospital transfer PPCI (n = 227), symptom to balloon 226 (175-350), call to balloon 135 (117-188), FPC to balloon 121 (102-166), first door-to-balloon 100 (80-142) (mortality: 7.0% at 30 days, 12.3% at 1 year); for direct-access PPCI (n = 477), symptom to balloon 142 (101-238), call to balloon 79 (70-93), FPC to balloon 69 (59-82), door to balloon 20 (16-29) (mortality: 4.6% at 30 days, 8.6% at 1 year). There was no difference between direct-access PPCI and TL times for symptom to needle/balloon. Direct-access PPCI was significantly quicker for the group than in-hospital thrombolysis for door to needle/balloon times due to the lack of any long wait patients (P < .001).Conclusions Interhospital transfer remains slow even with rapid institutional door-to-balloon times. With autonomous ambulance diagnosis and open access direct to the catheter laboratory, a median door-to-balloon time of <30 minutes day and night was achieved, and >95% of patients were reperfused within 1 hour. (Am Heart J 2009; 158:829-35.

A randomised tRial of Expedited transfer to a cardiac arrest centre for non-ST elevation ventricular fibrillation out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: The ARREST pilot randomised trial

Wide variation exists in inter-hospital survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Regionalisation of care into cardiac arrest centres (CAC)may improve this. We report a pilot randomised trial of expedited transfer to a CAC following OHCA without ST-elevation.The objective was to assess the feasibility of performing a large-scale randomised controlled trial. Adult witnessed ventricular fibrillation OHCA of presumed cardiac cause were randomised 1:1 to either: 1) treatment: comprising expedited transfer to a CAC for goal-directed therapy including access to immediate reperfusion, or 2) control: comprising current standard of care involving delivery to the geographically closest hospital. The feasibility of randomisation, protocol adherence and data collection of the primary (30-day all-cause mortality) and secondary (cerebral performance category (CPC)) and in-hospital major cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE)) clinical outcome measures were assessed. Between November 2014 and April 2016, 118 cases were screened, of which 63 patients (53%) met eligibility criteria and 40 of the 63 patients (63%) were randomised. There were no protocol deviations in the treatment arm. Data collection of primary and secondary outcomes was achieved in 83%. There was no difference in baseline characteristicsbetween the groups: 30-day mortality (Intervention 9/18, 50% vs. Control 6/15, 40%; P = 0.73), CPC 1/2 (Intervention: 9/18, 50% vs. Control 7/14, 50%; P &gt; 0.99) or MACCE (Intervention: 9/18, 50% vs. Control 6/15, 40%; P = 0.73). These findings support the feasibility and acceptability of conducting a large-scale randomised controlled trial of expedited transfer to CAC following OHCA to address a remaining uncertainty in post-arrest care

A randomised trial of expedited transfer to a cardiac arrest centre for non-ste out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: arrest

Background Wide variation exists in inter-hospital survival from OHCA. Regionalisation of care into cardiac arrest centres (CAC) may improve this. We report a pilot randomised trial of expedited transfer to a CAC following OHCA without ST-elevation. The objective was to assess the feasibility of performing a large-scale RCT. Methods Adult witnessed VF OHCA of presumed cardiac cause were randomised 1:1 to either: (1) intervention: expedited transfer to a CAC for goal-directed therapy including access to immediate reperfusion, or (2) control: current standard of care involving delivery to the geographically closest hospital. The feasibility of randomisation, protocol adherence and data collection of the primary (30 day all-cause mortality) and secondary (cerebral performance category (CPC)) and in-hospital major cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) clinical outcome measures were assessed. Results Between Nov 2014 and April 2016, 118 cases were screened, of which 63 patients (53%) met eligibility criteria and 40 of the 63 patients (63%) were randomised. There were no protocol deviations in the treatment arm. Data collection of primary and secondary outcomes was achieved in 83%. There was no difference in baseline characteristics between the groups: 30 day mortality (Int 9/18, 50% vs Control 6/15, 40%; p=0.73), CPC 1/2 (Int: 9/18, 50% vs Control 7/14, 50%; p>0.99) or MACCE (Int: 9/18, 50% vs Control 6/15, 40%; p=0.73). Conclusions These findings support the feasibility of conducting a large-scale RCT to address a remaining uncertainty in post-arrest care. https://heart.bmj.com/content/104/Suppl_1/A7.2 This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2018-BCIS.1