Primary percutaneous coronary intervention for patients presenting with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction: process improvement in a rural ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction receiving center.

BACKGROUND: Rural ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) care networks may be particularly disadvantaged in achieving a door-to-balloon time (D2B) of less than or equal to 90 minutes recommended in current guidelines. ST-ELEVATION MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION PROCESS UPGRADE PROJECT: A multidisciplinary STEMI process upgrade group at a rural percutaneous coronary intervention center implemented evidence-based strategies to reduce time to electrocardiogram (ECG) and D2B, including catheterization laboratory activation triggered by either a prehospital ECG demonstrating STEMI or an emergency department physician diagnosing STEMI, single-call catheterization laboratory activation, catheterization laboratory response time less than or equal to 30 minutes, and prompt data feedback. EVALUATING SUCCESS: An ongoing regional STEMI registry was used to collect process time intervals, including time to ECG and D2B, in a consecutive series of STEMI patients presenting before (group 1) and after (group 2) strategy implementation. Significant reductions in time to first ECG in the emergency department and D2B were seen in group 2 compared with group 1. CONCLUSIONS: Important improvement in the process of acute STEMI patient care was accomplished in the rural percutaneous coronary intervention center setting by implementing evidence-based strategies.

Real world, long-term outcomes comparison between paclitaxel-eluting and sirolimus-eluting stent platforms.

We compare real-world, extended target vessel revascularization (TVR)-free survival following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for patients receiving either sirolimus-eluting stents (SES) or paclitaxel-eluting stents (PES) following an index drug-eluting stent (DES) supported procedure. We analyzed 2,363 consecutive patients having first DES-supported PCI at receiving PES (n = 1,012) or SES (n = 1,332) from April 2004 to July 2006. Baseline clinical and procedural characteristics and in-hospital outcomes were recorded during the time of the index procedure and extended clinical outcomes data were obtained thereafter. TVR and all cause mortality were identified during the study period. Adjusted Kaplan-Meier and Cox's proportional hazard survival methods were performed. TVR-free survival at 2.3 years was 91.3% for SES compared with 88.9% for PES (P = 0.06). Kaplan-Meier survival curves did not significantly differ (adjusted hazard ratio -1.39 [95% CI 0.99-1.97]) between the SES and PES patient cohorts. TVR was similar between the stent platforms at one (96.6% for SES [95% CI 95.3-97.6] vs. 95.7% for PES [95% CI 94.1-96.9]) and two (95.0%[95% CI 93.0-96.4] for SES vs. 93.7% for PES [95% CI 91.6-95.3]) years. Overall survival at 2 years was 96.2% for SES (95% CI 94.7-97.3) and 95.3% for PES (95% CI 93.7-96.5). SES and PES drug-eluting stent platforms have good and similar extended outcomes in this real world registry of unselected patients having PCI.