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(Circulation. 2002;106:e9021.)
© 2002 American Heart Association, Inc.

Cardiovascular News

Ruth SoRelle, MPH

Circulation Newswriter

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

News From the 2002 Congress of the European Society of Cardiology: The Hotlines

BERLIN, Germany—In a city decorated with gaily painted bears and on the verge of the 10th anniversary of its reunification, the 2002 Congress of the European Society of Cardiology opened its sessions with the latest news on percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) and their use in acute coronary syndromes. As Patrick Serruys, MD, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, told attendees at the first hotline session on September 1, "As an interventional cardiologist, I am pleased to see that the interventional approach is gaining ground in the field of acute coronary syndromes."

That message was repeated again and again during the first Hotlines dealing with acute coronary syndromes, but the message was altered with the study reported by Francisco Fernández-Avilés, MD, and his colleagues. They found no difference in mortality at 30 days in the GRupo de Analisis de la Cardiopatia Isquemica Aguda (GRACIA) that enrolled 500 subjects. In the trial, 50% of patients were randomized to classical drug-based treatment and 50% to an early interventional strategy that included cardiac catheterization within 24 hours of thrombolysis followed by stent when appropriate. Patients who could not benefit from the stent received coronary artery bypass grafting or intensive drug therapy.

View larger version (124K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Francisco Fernández-Avilés, MD

In the group assigned to intervention, stent implantation was accomplished in 81% of cases, bypass in 3%, and drug treatment in the remaining 16%. The incidence of nonfatal cardiac events was 3.7% in the conventional arm and 0.8% in the interventional arm. The length of hospital stay was significantly . . . [Full Text of this Article]