The American journal of cardiology
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Pharmacoinvasive and Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Strategies in ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (from the Mayo Clinic STEMI Network).
The effectiveness of a pharmacoinvasive strategy consisting of fibrinolysis and transfer for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared to primary PCI (PPCI) in patients presenting to non-PCI-capable hospitals with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is not well defined. We analyzed data from the Mayo Clinic STEMI database of patients treated with a pharmacoinvasive strategy (favored in those presenting early after symptom onset) or PPCI in a regional STEMI network from 2004 to 2012. A total of 364 and 1,337 patients were included in the pharmacoinvasive and PPCI groups, respectively. ⋯ In multivariate analyses adjusting for age, gender, and other variables for which the 2 groups differed at baseline, there was no significant difference between the 2 strategies for 30-day (hazard ratio 0.66, 95% confidence interval 0.36 to 1.21) or overall mortality (hazard ratio 0.84, 95% confidence interval 0.63 to 1.12). Shorter door-to-balloon time was associated with increased effectiveness of PPCI (p for trend = 0.015), but there was no difference between the 2 strategies even when considering only the patients with door-to-balloon time in the lowest quartile. In conclusion, fibrinolysis followed by transfer for PCI represents a reasonable alternative when PPCI is not readily available especially in patients presenting early after symptom onset.