Timing of Early Invasive Intervention in Patients with Moderate to High Risk Acute Coronary Syndromes

Comparison of GRACE and TIMI risk scores in the prediction of in-hospital and long-term outcomes among East Asian non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients

Background

Risk stratification in non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) determines the intervention time. Limited study compared two risk scores, the Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) and Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) risk scores in the current East Asian NSTEMI patients.

Methods

This retrospective observational study consecutively collected patients in a large academic hospital between 01/01 and 11/01/2017 and followed for 4 years. Patients were scored by TIMI and GRACE scores on hospital admission. In-hospital endpoints were defined as the in-hospital composite event, including mortality, re-infarction, heart failure, stroke, cardiac shock, or resuscitation. Long-term outcomes were all-cause mortality and cardiac mortality in 4-year follow-up.

Results

A total of 232 patients were included (female 29.7%, median age 67 years), with a median follow-up of 3.7 years. GRACE score grouped most patients (45.7%) into high risk, while TIMI grouped the majority (61.2%) into medium risk. Further subgrouping the TIMI medium group showed that half (53.5%) of the TIMI medium risk population was GRACE high risk (≥ 140). Compared to TIMI medium group + GRACE < 140 subgroup, the TIMI medium + GRACE high-risk (≥ 140) subgroup had a significantly higher in-hospital events (39.5% vs. 9.1%, p < 0.05), long-term all-cause mortality (22.2% vs. 0% p < 0.001) and cardiac death (11.1% vs. 0% p = 0.045) in 4-year follow-up. GRACE risk scores showed a better predictive ability than TIMI risk scores both for in-hospital and long-term outcomes. (AUC of GRACE vs. TIMI, In-hospital: 0.82 vs. 0.62; long-term mortality: 0.89 vs. 0.68; long-term cardiac mortality: 0.91 vs. 0.67, all p < 0.05). Combined use of the two risk scores reserved both the convenience of scoring and the predictive accuracy.

Conclusion

GRACE showed better predictive accuracy than TIMI in East Asian NSTEMI patients in both in-hospital and long-term outcomes. The sequential use of TIMI and GRACE scores provide an easy and promising discriminative tool in predicting outcomes in NSTEMI East Asian patients.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12872-021-02311-z.

Effect of intervention timing on one-year mortality in elderly non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction patients

BACKGROUND

The best timing for early invasive therapy in non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) patients remains controversial. We sought to determine the optimal timing of early catheterization in order to improve long-term outcomes in elderly (>65  years old) patients with NSTEMI.

METHODS

Using data from the CRUSADE registry linked to Medicare claims, we evaluated the association of early catheterization within the first 24  h or earlier time cut-points of NSTEMI presentation with long-term mortality among older Medicare beneficiaries.

RESULTS

Of 15  575 NSTEMI patients from 398 CRUSADE hospitals (2003-2006), 3880 (24.9%) received early (≤12  h) catheterization. Compared with those undergoing later catheterization, patients treated early were younger and had less comorbid illness. Relative to those treated later, patients receiving early catheterization had similar 1-year all-cause mortality (11.8% vs 11.9%, P  =  0.90). Using on- vs off-hour presentation as an instrumental variable, balancing potential measured and unmeasured confounders, early and later catheterization patients had nonsignificant differences in 1-year mortality (+5.6% [-11.5%, +22.7%]). Similar results were observed in clinically relevant subgroups, such as age (< or ≥75  years), gender, diabetes status, Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events score (< or ≥140), presence of heart failure, and sensitivity analyses of alternative definitions of early catheterization (≤6 and ≤24  h).

CONCLUSIONS

Among older NSTEMI patients, we found that <24  h or earlier (neither <6 nor 12  h) of catheterization timing were not significantly associated with differences in long-term mortality.