Improving outcome in acute myocardial infarction

• Background: Despite common guidelines there are vanatlons in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between hospitals in Sweden. Uncertainties remain regarding the efficacy of early statin therapy and early revascularisation in AMI patients. In the elderly patients also the role of fibrinolytic therapy has been questioned.Methods: We created a national quality assurance register named RIKS-HIA including all patients admitted to participating hospitals' ICCU. The database accumulates information about baseline characteristics, interventions, complications and outcome in consecutive patients. The merging of the database with the Cause of Death Register provides  opportunity to compare the effects of treatments on long-term outcome. Multivariate Cox regression analysis and propensity score was used to evaluate outcome in AMI patients of the studied interventions, and to compare activity level between different hospitals.Results: After patient characteristics were taken into account there were still significant differences between the hospitals in some treatment modalities that remained over time. There was no correlation between hospital size and activity level. In 19 599 in-hospital survivors after their first registry-recorded AMI at an age below 80 years early statin treatment was associated with a 25 % relative risk reduction of I-year mortality. In 21 912 patients with first registry-recorded AMI younger than 80 years and alive at day 14, early revascularisation was associated with a 50 % relative reduction of I-year mortality. For both therapies the effects were homogeneous among all subgroups based on age, gender, baseline characteristics, previous disease manifestations and medication. Fibrinolytic therapy in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction patients 75 years of age and older showed a net benefit of 13% in outcome when non-fatal intracranial haemorrhage and I-year survival were analysed.Conclusion: The results indicates the need of continuous quality assurance, and strategies to reduce the differences in AMI therapy between hospitals. They lend support to early statin and early revascularisation regimens in AMI patients. Fibrinolytic therapy is recommended also in the elderly patients.

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MEDICINE

MEDICIN

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