Safety of early hospital discharge following admission with ST-elevation myocardial infarction treated with percutaneous coronary intervention: a nationwide cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The Second Primary Angioplasty in Myocardial Infarction (PAMI-II) risk score is recommended by guidelines to identify low-risk patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) for an early discharge strategy. AIMS: We aimed to assess the safety of early discharge (≤2 days) for low-risk STEMI patients treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). METHODS: Using nationwide data from the SWEDEHEART registry, we identified patients with STEMI treated with primary PCI during the period 2009-2017, of whom 8,092 (26.4%) were identified as low risk with the PAMI-II score. Low-risk patients were stratified according to their length of hospital stay (≤2 days vs >2 days). The primary endpoint was major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE, including death, reinfarction treated with PCI, stroke or heart failure hospitalisation) at one year, assessed using a Cox proportional hazards model with propensity score as well as an inverse probability weighting propensity score of average treatment effect to adjust for confounders. RESULTS: A total of 1,449 (17.9%) patients were discharged ≤2 days from admission. After adjustment, the one-year MACE rate was not higher for patients discharged at >2 days from admission than for patients discharged ≤2 days (4.3% vs 3.2%; adjusted HR 1.31, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.92-1.87, p=0.14), and no difference was observed regarding any of the individual components of the main outcome. Results were consistent across all subgroups with no difference in MACE between early and late discharge patients. CONCLUSIONS: Nationwide observational data suggest that early discharge of low-risk patients with STEMI treated with PCI is not associated with an increase in one-year MACE.

Drug therapy in cardiac arrest: a review of the literature.

The aim of this study was to review the literature on human studies of drug therapy in cardiac arrest during the last 25 years. In May 2015, a systematic literature search was performed in PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and CRD databases. Prospective interventional and observational studies evaluating a specified drug therapy in human cardiac arrest reporting a clinical endpoint [i.e. return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) or survival] and published in English 1990 or later were included, whereas animal studies, case series and reports, studies of drug administration, drug pharmacology, non-specified drug therapies, preventive drug therapy, drug administration after ROSC, studies with primarily physiological endpoints, and studies of traumatic cardiac arrest were excluded. The literature search identified a total of 8936 articles. Eighty-eight articles met our inclusion criteria and were included in the review. We identified no human study in which drug therapy, compared with placebo, improved long-term survival. Regarding adrenaline and amiodarone, the drugs currently recommended in cardiac arrest, two prospective randomized placebo-controlled trials, were identified for adrenaline, and one for amiodarone, but they were all underpowered to detect differences in survival to hospital discharge. Of all reviewed studies, only one recent prospective study demonstrated improved neurological outcome with one therapy over another using a combination of vasopressin, steroids, and adrenaline as the intervention compared with standard adrenaline administration. The evidence base for drug therapy in cardiac arrest is scarce. However, many human studies on drug therapy in cardiac arrest have not been powered to identify differences in important clinical outcomes such as survival to hospital discharge and favourable neurological outcome. Efforts are needed to initiate large multicentre prospective randomized clinical trials to evaluate both currently recommended and future drug therapies.

Trends in Gender Differences in Cardiac Care and Outcome After Acute Myocardial Infarction in Western Sweden: A Report From the Swedish Web System for Enhancement of Evidence-Based Care in Heart Disease Evaluated According to Recommended Therapies (SWEDEHEART).

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death for both genders. Debates are ongoing as to whether gender-specific differences in clinical course, diagnosis, and management of acute myocardial infarction (MI) exist. METHODS AND RESULTS: We compared all men and women who were treated for acute MI at cardiac care units in Västra Götaland, Sweden, between January 1995 and October 2014 by obtaining data from the prospective SWEDEHEART (Swedish Web-System for Enhancement of Evidence-Based Care in Heart Disease Evaluated According to Recommended Therapies) registry. We performed unadjusted and adjusted Cox proportional hazards and logistic regression analyses on complete case data and on imputed data sets. Overall, 48 118 patients (35.4% women) were diagnosed with acute MI. Women as a group had better age-adjusted prognosis than men, but this survival benefit was absent for younger women (aged <60 years) and for women with ST-segment elevation MI. Compared with men, younger women and women with ST-segment elevation MI were more likely to develop prehospital cardiogenic shock (adjusted odds ratio 1.67, 95% CI 1.30 to 2.16, P<0.001 and adjusted odds ratio 1.31, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.48, P<0.001) and were less likely to be prescribed evidence-based treatment at discharge (P<0.001 for ß-blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers, statins, and P2Y12 antagonists). Differences in treatment between the genders did not decrease over the study period (P>0.1 for all treatments). CONCLUSIONS: Women on average have better adjusted prognosis than men after acute MI; however, younger women and women with ST-segment elevation MI have disproportionately poor prognosis and are less likely to be prescribed evidence-based treatment.