Long-term trends (1986-2003) in the use of coronary reperfusion strategies in patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction in central Massachusetts

Recent trends in the incidence, treatment, and outcomes of patients with STEMI and NSTEMI

BACKGROUND

despite the widespread use of electrocardiographic changes to characterize patients presenting with acute myocardial infarction, little is known about recent trends in the incidence rates, treatment, and outcomes of patients admitted for acute myocardial infarction further classified according to the presence of ST-segment elevation. The objectives of this population-based study were to examine recent trends in the incidence and death rates associated with the 2 major types of acute myocardial infarction in residents of a large central Massachusetts metropolitan area.

METHODS

We reviewed the medical records of 5383 residents of the Worcester (MA) metropolitan area hospitalized for either ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction (STEMI) or non-ST-segment acute myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) between 1997 and 2005 at 11 greater Worcester medical centers.

RESULTS

the incidence rates (per 100,000) of STEMI decreased appreciably (121 to 77), whereas the incidence rates of NSTEMI increased slightly (126 to 132) between 1997 and 2005. Although in-hospital and 30-day case-fatality rates remained stable in both groups, 1-year postdischarge death rates decreased between 1997 and 2005 for patients with STEMI and NSTEMI.

CONCLUSIONS

the results of this study demonstrate recent decreases in the magnitude of STEMI, slight increases in the incidence rates of NSTEMI, and decreases in long-term mortality in patients with STEMI and NSTEMI. Our findings suggest that acute myocardial infarction prevention and treatment efforts have resulted in favorable decreases in the frequency of STEMI and death rates from the major types of acute myocardial infarction.

Nationwide trends in the utilisation of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the United States of America based on gender and ethnicities

AIMS

With advancement in technology, the number of percutaneous coronary interventions performed are rising. The goal of this study was to evaluate nationwide trend over a long period of time in the utilisation of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) using a large database.

METHODS AND RESULTS

The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database was utilised to calculate the age-adjusted rate for PCI from 1988 to 2004. Specific ICD-9-CM codes for all PCIs were used to compile the data. The NIS database contained 1,747,736 patients who had PCI performed from 1988 to 2004. The mean age for these patients was 63.75+/-11.07 years old. From 1988, the age-adjusted rate for all PCI gradually increased to more than three times until 2001 (80.3 per 100,000 [95%CI=71.86-88.92] in 1988 and 244 per 100,000 [95%CI=221.31-266.39, p<0.01] in 2001), but remained relatively unchanged (slight decline in the last few years of the study) until the end of the study (232.17 per 100,000 95%CI=211.69-252.66) in 2004. These trends were similar across ethnicity, gender and comorbid conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

The utilisation of PCI has dramatically increased from 1988 to 2001, but remained steady thereafter. The availability of drug eluting stents in the USA after 2001 may have contributed to this trend.