Effect of nicorandil treatment adjunctive to percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with acute myocardial infarction: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective

There is controversy whether nicorandil treatment has cardioprotective effects in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) following percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). This meta-analysis was conducted to assess the efficacy of nicorandil on functional and clinical outcomes after PCI.

Methods

Systematic databases were searched to retrieve studies that compared the effect of nicorandil with a control group in patients with AMI who underwent PCI. Outcomes related to coronary blood flow, and functional and clinical outcomes were extracted and a meta-analysis was performed. Trial sequential analysis was conducted to estimate the required sample size for statistical power.

Results

Twenty-four trials involving 2965 patients with AMI were enrolled. Pooled results showed that nicorandil treatment significantly suppressed the incidence of no-reflow phenomenon and reperfusion arrhythmia after reperfusion, improved the left ventricular ejection fraction and left ventricular end-systolic volume index, and reduced major adverse cardiovascular events and cardiovascular death. Trial sequential analysis confirmed the effect of nicorandil in reducing the incidence of no-reflow phenomenon and follow-up major adverse cardiovascular events in patients with AMI after PCI.

Conclusion

Our findings suggest that nicorandil treatment adjunctive to reperfusion therapy improves myocardial reperfusion, cardiac function, and clinical outcomes in patients with AMI.

Effect of intracoronary agents on the no-reflow phenomenon during primary percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction: a network meta-analysis

Background

Despite the restoration of epicardial flow after primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI), myocardial reperfusion remains impaired in a significant proportion of patients. We performed a network meta-analysis to assess the effect of 7 intracoronary agents (adenosine, anisodamine, diltiazem, nicorandil, nitroprusside, urapidil, and verapamil) on the no-reflow phenomenon in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing PPCI.

Methods

Database searches were conducted to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the 7 agents with each other or with standard PPCI. Outcome measures included thrombolysis in myocardial infarction flow grade (TFG), ST-segment resolution (STR), left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs), and adverse events.

Results

Forty-one RCTs involving 4069 patients were analyzed. The addition of anisodamine to standard PPCI for STEMI was associated with improved post-procedural TFG, more occurrences of STR, and improvement of LVEF. The cardioprotective effect of anisodamine conferred a MACE-free survival benefit. Additionally, nitroprusside was regarded as efficient in improving coronary flow and clinical outcomes. Compared with standard care, adenosine, nicorandil, and verapamil improved coronary flow but had no corresponding benefits regarding cardiac function and clinical outcomes. The ranking probability for the 7 treatment drugs showed that anisodamine consistently ranked the highest in efficacy outcomes (TFG < 3, STR, LVEF, and MACEs). No severe adverse events, such as hypotension and malignant arrhythmia, were observed in patients treated with anisodamine. Network meta-regression analysis showed that age, the time to reperfusion, and study follow-up did not affect the treatment effects.

Conclusions

The intracoronary administration of anisodamine appears to improve myocardial reperfusion, cardiac function, and clinical outcomes in patients with STEMI undergoing PPCI. Given the limited quality and quantity of the included studies, more rigorous RCTs are needed to verify the role of this inexpensive and well-tolerated regimen.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12872-017-0722-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.