Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of mortality in the western World, but significant improvements have been made in its treatment and prevention. This thesis shows that consistent implementation of a structured regional treatment and prevention program for acute myocardial infarction patients is feasible when health professionals of various disciplines collaborate.The aim of the main part of this thesis was to evaluate the implementation of the MISSION! AMI protocol in clinical practice at various stages of the program (from pre-hospital care to secondary prevention), to evaluate efficacy and safety of sirolimus-eluting stents at 3-year follow-up, and to study differences in stent edge characteristics in a subgroup of patients by the use of virtual histology-intravascular ultrasound imaging.UBL - phd migration 201
