Outcomes of primary coronary angioplasty and angioplasty after initial thrombolysis in the treatment of 374 consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction

Early routine percutaneous coronary intervention after fibrinolysis vs. standard therapy in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction: a meta-analysis

AIMS

Multiple trials in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) compared early routine percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) after successful fibrinolysis vs. standard therapy limiting PCI only to patients without evidence of reperfusion (rescue PCI). These trials suggest that all patients receiving fibrinolysis should receive mechanical revascularization within 24 h from initial hospitalization. However, individual trials could not demonstrate a significant reduction in 'hard' endpoints such as death and reinfarction. We performed a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials to define the benefits of early PCI after fibrinolysis over standard therapy on clinical and safety endpoints in STEMI.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We identified seven eligible trials, enrolling a total of 2961 patients. No difference was found in the incidence of death at 30 days between the two strategies. Early PCI after successful fibrinolysis reduced the rate of reinfarction (OR: 0.55, 95% CI: 0.36-0.82; P = 0.003), the combined endpoint death/reinfarction (OR: 0.65, 95% CI: 0.49-0.88; P = 0.004) and recurrent ischaemia (OR: 0.25, 95% CI: 0.13-0.49; P < 0.001) at 30-day follow-up. These advantages were achieved without a significant increase in major bleeding (OR: 0.93, 96% CI: 0.67-1.34; P = 0.70) or stroke (OR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.31-1.26; P = 0.21). The benefits of a routine invasive strategy over standard therapy were maintained at 6-12 months, with persistent significant reduction in the endpoints reinfarction (OR: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.40-0.98; P = 0.01) and combined death/reinfarction (OR: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.52-0.97; P = 0.03).

CONCLUSION

Early routine PCI after fibrinolysis in STEMI patients significantly reduced reinfarction and recurrent ischaemia at 1 month, with no significant increase in adverse bleeding events compared to standard therapy. Benefits of early PCI persist at 6-12 month follow-up.

Management of failed thrombolysis after acute myocardial infarction: An overview of current treatment options

Thrombolytic therapy remains the most commonly administered revascularization strategy for patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarctions (STEMI). However, many patients fail to have patent arteries or ST-segment resolution after these therapies. Multiple strategies have been examined to treat these patients with "failed thrombolysis." We examined the existing medical literature regarding treatment of failed thrombolysis including strategies testing repeat thrombolytic therapy and rescue percutaneous coronary intervention. Additional, we reviewed the literature regarding the efficacy of transferring patient for rescue percutaneous intervention and coronary stenting. The impact of contemporary antiplatelet strategies, cardiogenic shock, and coronary bypass surgery was examined. Overall, the management of patients with acute STEMI in whom thrombolytic therapy failed remains a challenging problem. As a result, many different strategies are currently in use. Among these therapeutic interventions, rescue PCI with coronary stenting appears to be superior when it is done in a timely manner by an experienced center.

Percutaneous Coronary Intervention After Fibrinolysis

OBJECTIVES

We performed a meta-analysis of randomized trials that enrolled ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction patients treated with fibrinolysis to assess the potential benefits of: 1) rescue percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) versus no PCI; 2) systematic and early (< or =24 h) PCI versus delayed or ischemia-guided PCI; 3) fibrinolysis-facilitated PCI versus primary PCI alone.

BACKGROUND

The impact of PCI strategies after fibrinolysis on mortality or reinfarction remains to be established.

METHODS

The meta-analysis was performed using the odds ratio (OR) as the parameter of efficacy with a random effect model. Fifteen randomized trials (5,253 patients) were selected. The primary end point was mortality or the combined end point of death or reinfarction.

RESULTS

Rescue PCI for failed fibrinolysis reduced mortality (6.9% vs. 10.7%) (OR, 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.39 to 0.99; p = 0.055) and the rate of death or reinfarction (10.8% vs. 16.8%) (OR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.41 to 0.89; p = 0.012) compared with a conservative approach. Systematic and early PCI performed during the "stent era" led to a nonsignificant reduction in mortality compared with delayed or ischemia-guided PCI (3.8% vs. 6.7%) (OR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.29 to 1.05; p = 0.07) and to a 2-fold reduction in the rate of death or reinfarction (7.5% vs. 13.2%) (OR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.33 to 0.83; p = 0.0067). This benefit contrasted with a nonsignificant increase in the rate of both mortality (5.5% vs. 3.9%, p = 0.33) or death or reinfarction (9.6% vs. 5.7%, p = 0.06) observed in the "balloon era." Fibrinolysis-facilitated PCI was associated with more reinfarction as compared with primary PCI alone (5.0% vs. 3.0%) (OR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.12 to 2.51; p = 0.013) without significant impact on mortality (OR, 1.30; 95% CI, 0.92 to 1.83; p = 0.13).

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings support rescue PCI and systematic and early PCI after fibrinolysis. However, the current data do not support fibrinolysis-facilitated PCI in lieu of primary PCI alone.

Therapeutic Potential of Monteplase in Acute Myocardial Infarction as a Powerful Thrombolytic Agent for Pretreatment of Coronary Intervention

Thrombolysis with conventional thrombolytic agents followed by percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) had no impact on the treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, the development of mutant type plasminogen activator (mt-PA) has prompted us to reassess the combination of thrombolysis and PCI. Monteplase (Eisai, Co. Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) is a newly developed mt-PA that can be administrated as a single intravenous bolus injection. We initiated a clinical trial [Combining Monteplase with Angioplasty (COMA)] to evaluate the effectiveness of monteplase followed by PCI. The AMI patients were randomly assigned to receive PCI following pretreatment with a single bolus intravenous injection of monteplase or direct PCI without monteplase. The initial coronary angiography prior to PCI showed that 36.2% of patients in the monteplase group achieved Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) 3 flow in the infarct-related artery, compared with in only 7.9% of patients in the direct PCI group (P < 0.0001). During 24 months following PCI, major cardiac events occurred in 27.7% of patients in the monteplase + PCI group, and in 46.7% of patients in the direct PCI group without monteplase (P < 0.05). Thus, the ideal strategy for the treatment of AMI is the administration of monteplase upon arrival at a community hospital with a prompt transfer to a tertiary center for PCI.