A new study on Rescue Angioplasty after Failed Thrombolytic Therapy for Acute Myocardial Infarction

Management of acute myocardial infarction has continued to evolve over the years. Thrombolysis, and later primary PCI has improved the results. There are many areas which are not clear like the appropriate treatment for patients in whom reperfusion fails to occur after thrombolytic therapy. This study published in NEJM compares rescue PCI with repeated thrombolysis.

This is a multicenter trial in the United Kingdom involving 427 patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction in whom reperfusion failed to occur (less than 50 percent ST-segment resolution) within 90 minutes after thrombolytic treatment. The patients were randomly assigned to repeated thrombolysis (142 patients), conservative treatment (141 patients), or rescue PCI (144 patients). The primary end point was a composite of death, reinfarction, stroke, or severe heart failure within six months.

The rate of event-free survival among patients treated with rescue PCI was 84.6 percent, as compared with 70.1 percent among those receiving conservative therapy and 68.7 percent among those undergoing repeated thrombolysis. There were no significant differences in mortality from all causes. Nonfatal bleeding, mostly at the sheath-insertion site, was more common with rescue PCI. At six months, 86.2 percent of the rescue-PCI group were free from revascularization, as compared with 77.6 percent of the conservative-therapy group and 74.4 percent of the repeated-thrombolysis group.

The study concludes that event-free survival after failed thrombolytic therapy was significantly higher with rescue PCI than with repeated thrombolysis or conservative treatment and recommends that rescue PCI should be considered for patients in whom reperfusion fails to occur after thrombolytic therapy.