SCAI 2020

Inequities in the initial growth of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) programs in American hospitals has led to less use of the transformative procedure in poorer communities, a new cross-sectional study suggests.

Using Medicare claims data, investigators identified 554 new TAVR programs created between January 2012 and December 2018.

Of these, 98% were established in metropolitan areas (>50,000 residents) and 53% were started in areas with preexisting TAVR programs, “thereby increasing the number of programs but not necessarily increasing the geographic availability of the procedure,” said study author Ashwin Nathan, MD, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Only 11 programs were started in nonmetropolitan areas over the study period, he noted during the featured clinical research presentation at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 2021 annual scientific sessions, held virtually this year.

Hospitals that established TAVR programs, compared with those that did not, cared for patients with higher median household incomes (difference, $1,305; P = .03) and from areas with better economic well-being based on the Distressed Communities Index (difference, –3.15 units; P < .01), and cared for fewer patients with dual eligibility for Medicaid (difference, –3.15%; P < .01).

When the investigators looked at rates of TAVR between the core-based statistical areas, there were fewer TAVR procedures per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries in areas with more Medicaid dual-eligible patients (difference, –1.19% per 1% increase), lower average median household incomes (difference, –0.62% per $1,000 decrease), and more average community distress (difference, –0.35% per 1 unit increase; P < .01 for all).

“What we can conclude is that the increased number of TAVR programs that we found during the study period did not necessarily translate to increased access to TAVR ... Wealthy, more privileged patients had more access to TAVR by virtue of the hospitals that serve them,” Dr. Nathan said.

Future steps, he said, are to identify the role of race and ethnicity in inequitable access to TAVR, identify system- and patient-level barriers to access, and to develop and test solutions to address inequitable care.

Elaborating on the latter point during a discussion of the results, study coauthor Jay S. Giri, MD, MPH, also from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, observed that although the data showed rural areas are left behind, not every part of an urban area acts like the area more generally.

As a result, they’re delving into the 25 largest urban areas and trying to disaggregate, based on both socioeconomic status and race within the area, whether inequities exist, he said. “Believe it or not, in some urban areas where there clearly is access – there might even be a dozen TAVR programs within a 25 mile radius – do some of those areas still act like rural areas that don’t have access? So more to come on that.”

Session comoderator Steven Yakubov, MD, MidWest Cardiology Research Foundation in Columbus, Ohio, said the results show TAVR programs tend to be developed in well-served areas but asked whether some of the responsibility falls on patients to seek medical attention. “Do we just not give enough education to patients on how to access care?”

Dr. Giri responded by highlighting the complexity of navigating from even being diagnosed with aortic stenosis to making it through a multidisciplinary TAVR evaluation.

“Individuals with increased health literacy and more means are more likely to make it through that gauntlet. But from a public health perspective, obviously, I’d argue that the onus is probably more on the medical community at large to figure out how to roll these programs out more widespread,” he said.

“It looked to us like market forces overwhelmingly seemed to drive the development of new TAVR programs over access to care considerations,” Dr. Giri added. “And just to point out, those market forces aren’t at the level of the device manufacturers, who are often maligned for cost. This is really about the market forces at the level of hospitals and health systems.”

Session comoderator Megan Coylewright, MD, MPH, Erlanger Heart and Lung Institute, Chattanooga, Tenn., said, “I think that’s really well stated,” and noted that physicians may bear some responsibility as well.

“From a physician responsibility, especially for structural heart, we tended to all aggregate together, all of us that have structural heart training or that have trained in certain institutions,” she said. “It’s certainly on us to continue to spread out and go to the communities in need to ensure access. I think, as Dr. Giri said, there are a lot of solutions and that needs to be the focus for the next couple of years.”

Dr. Nathan reported having no relevant disclosures. Dr. Giri reported serving as a principal investigator for a research study for Boston Scientific, Inari Medical, Abbott, and Recor Medical; consulting for Boston Scientific; and serving on an advisory board for Inari Medical.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Inequities in the initial growth of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) programs in American hospitals has led to less use of the transformative procedure in poorer communities, a new cross-sectional study suggests.

Using Medicare claims data, investigators identified 554 new TAVR programs created between January 2012 and December 2018.

Of these, 98% were established in metropolitan areas (>50,000 residents) and 53% were started in areas with preexisting TAVR programs, “thereby increasing the number of programs but not necessarily increasing the geographic availability of the procedure,” said study author Ashwin Nathan, MD, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Only 11 programs were started in nonmetropolitan areas over the study period, he noted during the featured clinical research presentation at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 2021 annual scientific sessions, held virtually this year.

Hospitals that established TAVR programs, compared with those that did not, cared for patients with higher median household incomes (difference, $1,305; P = .03) and from areas with better economic well-being based on the Distressed Communities Index (difference, –3.15 units; P < .01), and cared for fewer patients with dual eligibility for Medicaid (difference, –3.15%; P < .01).

When the investigators looked at rates of TAVR between the core-based statistical areas, there were fewer TAVR procedures per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries in areas with more Medicaid dual-eligible patients (difference, –1.19% per 1% increase), lower average median household incomes (difference, –0.62% per $1,000 decrease), and more average community distress (difference, –0.35% per 1 unit increase; P < .01 for all).

“What we can conclude is that the increased number of TAVR programs that we found during the study period did not necessarily translate to increased access to TAVR ... Wealthy, more privileged patients had more access to TAVR by virtue of the hospitals that serve them,” Dr. Nathan said.

Future steps, he said, are to identify the role of race and ethnicity in inequitable access to TAVR, identify system- and patient-level barriers to access, and to develop and test solutions to address inequitable care.

Elaborating on the latter point during a discussion of the results, study coauthor Jay S. Giri, MD, MPH, also from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, observed that although the data showed rural areas are left behind, not every part of an urban area acts like the area more generally.

As a result, they’re delving into the 25 largest urban areas and trying to disaggregate, based on both socioeconomic status and race within the area, whether inequities exist, he said. “Believe it or not, in some urban areas where there clearly is access – there might even be a dozen TAVR programs within a 25 mile radius – do some of those areas still act like rural areas that don’t have access? So more to come on that.”

Session comoderator Steven Yakubov, MD, MidWest Cardiology Research Foundation in Columbus, Ohio, said the results show TAVR programs tend to be developed in well-served areas but asked whether some of the responsibility falls on patients to seek medical attention. “Do we just not give enough education to patients on how to access care?”

Dr. Giri responded by highlighting the complexity of navigating from even being diagnosed with aortic stenosis to making it through a multidisciplinary TAVR evaluation.

“Individuals with increased health literacy and more means are more likely to make it through that gauntlet. But from a public health perspective, obviously, I’d argue that the onus is probably more on the medical community at large to figure out how to roll these programs out more widespread,” he said.

“It looked to us like market forces overwhelmingly seemed to drive the development of new TAVR programs over access to care considerations,” Dr. Giri added. “And just to point out, those market forces aren’t at the level of the device manufacturers, who are often maligned for cost. This is really about the market forces at the level of hospitals and health systems.”

Session comoderator Megan Coylewright, MD, MPH, Erlanger Heart and Lung Institute, Chattanooga, Tenn., said, “I think that’s really well stated,” and noted that physicians may bear some responsibility as well.

“From a physician responsibility, especially for structural heart, we tended to all aggregate together, all of us that have structural heart training or that have trained in certain institutions,” she said. “It’s certainly on us to continue to spread out and go to the communities in need to ensure access. I think, as Dr. Giri said, there are a lot of solutions and that needs to be the focus for the next couple of years.”

Dr. Nathan reported having no relevant disclosures. Dr. Giri reported serving as a principal investigator for a research study for Boston Scientific, Inari Medical, Abbott, and Recor Medical; consulting for Boston Scientific; and serving on an advisory board for Inari Medical.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Inequities in the initial growth of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) programs in American hospitals has led to less use of the transformative procedure in poorer communities, a new cross-sectional study suggests.

Using Medicare claims data, investigators identified 554 new TAVR programs created between January 2012 and December 2018.

Of these, 98% were established in metropolitan areas (>50,000 residents) and 53% were started in areas with preexisting TAVR programs, “thereby increasing the number of programs but not necessarily increasing the geographic availability of the procedure,” said study author Ashwin Nathan, MD, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Only 11 programs were started in nonmetropolitan areas over the study period, he noted during the featured clinical research presentation at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) 2021 annual scientific sessions, held virtually this year.

Hospitals that established TAVR programs, compared with those that did not, cared for patients with higher median household incomes (difference, $1,305; P = .03) and from areas with better economic well-being based on the Distressed Communities Index (difference, –3.15 units; P < .01), and cared for fewer patients with dual eligibility for Medicaid (difference, –3.15%; P < .01).

When the investigators looked at rates of TAVR between the core-based statistical areas, there were fewer TAVR procedures per 100,000 Medicare beneficiaries in areas with more Medicaid dual-eligible patients (difference, –1.19% per 1% increase), lower average median household incomes (difference, –0.62% per $1,000 decrease), and more average community distress (difference, –0.35% per 1 unit increase; P < .01 for all).

“What we can conclude is that the increased number of TAVR programs that we found during the study period did not necessarily translate to increased access to TAVR ... Wealthy, more privileged patients had more access to TAVR by virtue of the hospitals that serve them,” Dr. Nathan said.

Future steps, he said, are to identify the role of race and ethnicity in inequitable access to TAVR, identify system- and patient-level barriers to access, and to develop and test solutions to address inequitable care.

Elaborating on the latter point during a discussion of the results, study coauthor Jay S. Giri, MD, MPH, also from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, observed that although the data showed rural areas are left behind, not every part of an urban area acts like the area more generally.

As a result, they’re delving into the 25 largest urban areas and trying to disaggregate, based on both socioeconomic status and race within the area, whether inequities exist, he said. “Believe it or not, in some urban areas where there clearly is access – there might even be a dozen TAVR programs within a 25 mile radius – do some of those areas still act like rural areas that don’t have access? So more to come on that.”

Session comoderator Steven Yakubov, MD, MidWest Cardiology Research Foundation in Columbus, Ohio, said the results show TAVR programs tend to be developed in well-served areas but asked whether some of the responsibility falls on patients to seek medical attention. “Do we just not give enough education to patients on how to access care?”

Dr. Giri responded by highlighting the complexity of navigating from even being diagnosed with aortic stenosis to making it through a multidisciplinary TAVR evaluation.

“Individuals with increased health literacy and more means are more likely to make it through that gauntlet. But from a public health perspective, obviously, I’d argue that the onus is probably more on the medical community at large to figure out how to roll these programs out more widespread,” he said.

“It looked to us like market forces overwhelmingly seemed to drive the development of new TAVR programs over access to care considerations,” Dr. Giri added. “And just to point out, those market forces aren’t at the level of the device manufacturers, who are often maligned for cost. This is really about the market forces at the level of hospitals and health systems.”

Session comoderator Megan Coylewright, MD, MPH, Erlanger Heart and Lung Institute, Chattanooga, Tenn., said, “I think that’s really well stated,” and noted that physicians may bear some responsibility as well.

“From a physician responsibility, especially for structural heart, we tended to all aggregate together, all of us that have structural heart training or that have trained in certain institutions,” she said. “It’s certainly on us to continue to spread out and go to the communities in need to ensure access. I think, as Dr. Giri said, there are a lot of solutions and that needs to be the focus for the next couple of years.”

Dr. Nathan reported having no relevant disclosures. Dr. Giri reported serving as a principal investigator for a research study for Boston Scientific, Inari Medical, Abbott, and Recor Medical; consulting for Boston Scientific; and serving on an advisory board for Inari Medical.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Patients in the landmark ISCHEMIA trial with intermediate left main disease had a greater extent of coronary artery disease on invasive angiography, indicating greater atherosclerotic burden. They also had worse prognosis with a higher risk of cardiovascular events.

“Many times, we are looking at results as to whether patients have left main disease or not,” Sripal Bangalore, MD, said during the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “Here, we are showing that it’s not black and white; there are shades of gray. If a patient has intermediate left main disease, the prognosis is worse. That’s very important information we need to convey to our referrals also, because many times they may just look at the bottom line and say, ‘there is no left main disease.’ But here, we’re seeing that even having intermediate left main disease has significantly worse prognosis. We need to take that seriously.”

Prior studies show that patients with significant left main disease (LMD; defined as 50% or greater stenosis on coronary CT angiography [CCTA]) have a high risk of cardiovascular events and guidelines recommend revascularization to improve survival, said Dr. Bangalore, an interventional cardiologist at New York University Langone Health. However, the impact of intermediate LMD (defined as 25%-49% stenosis on CCTA) on outcomes is unclear.

Members of the ISCHEMIA (International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches) research group randomized 5,179 participants to an initial invasive or conservative strategy. The main results showed that immediate revascularization in patients with stable ischemic heart disease provided no reduction in cardiovascular endpoints through 4 years of follow-up, compared with initial optimal medical therapy alone.
 

‘Discordance’ revealed in imaging modalities

For the current analysis, named the ISCHEMIA Intermediate LM Substudy, those who underwent coronary CCTA comprise the LMD substudy cohort. The objective was to evaluate clinical and quality of life outcomes in patients with and without intermediate left main disease on coronary CT and to evaluate the impact of treatment strategy on those outcomes across subgroups.

At baseline, these patients were categorized into those with and without intermediate LMD as determined by a core lab. Patients with LMD of 50% or greater, those with prior coronary artery bypass graft surgery, and those with nonevaluable or missing data on LM stenosis were excluded.

Among the 3,913 ISCHEMIA participants who underwent CCTA, 3,699 satisfied the inclusion criteria. Of these patients, 962 (26%) had intermediate LMD and 2,737 (74%) did not.

The researchers observed no significant differences in baseline characteristics between patients with and without LMD. However, patients with intermediate LMD tended to be older, and a greater proportion had hypertension and diabetes. Stress test characteristics were also similar between patients with and without LMD. However, patients with intermediate LMD tended toward a greater severity of severe ischemia.

This was also true for anatomic disease on CCTA. A higher proportion of patients with intermediate LMD had triple-vessel disease (61%-62%, compared with 36%-40% along those without intermediate LMD). In addition, a higher proportion of patients with intermediate LMD had stenosis in the proximal left anterior artery descending (LAD) artery (65% vs. 39% among those without intermediate LMD).

On analysis limited to 1,846 patients who underwent invasive angiography treatment in the main ISCHEMIA trial, 7% of those who were categorized into the intermediate LMD group were found to have LMD disease of 50% or greater, compared with 1.4% of patients who were categorized as not having intermediate LMD. “This goes to show this discordance between the two modalities [CCTA and coronary angiography], and I think we have to be careful,” said Dr. Bangalore, who also directs NYU Langone’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. “There may be patients with left main disease, even if the CCTA says it’s not at 25%-29% [stenosis].”

The researchers found that, among patients who underwent invasive angiography, a greater proportion of those who were categorized into the LMD group had proximal LAD disease (43% vs. 33% among those who were categorized into the nonintermediate LMD group), triple-vessel disease (47% vs. 35%), a greater extent of coronary artery disease as denoted by a higher SYNTAX score (21 vs. 15), and a higher proportion underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (32% vs. 18%).
 

Intermediate LMD linked to worse outcomes

After the researchers adjusted for baseline differences between the two groups in overall substudy cohort, they found that intermediate LMD severity was an independent predictor of the primary composite endpoint of cardiovascular death, MI, hospitalization for unstable angina, heart failure, and resuscitated cardiac arrest (hazard ratio, 1.31; P = .0123); cardiovascular death/MI/stroke (HR, 1.30; P = .0143); procedural primary MI (HR, 1.64; P = .0487); heart failure (HR, 2.06; P = .0239); and stroke (HR, 1.82, P = .0362).

“We then looked to see if there is a treatment difference, a treatment effect based on whether patients had intermediate LMD,” Dr. Bangalore said. “Most of the P values were not significant. The results are very consistent with what we saw in the main analysis: not a significant difference between invasive and conservative strategy. We do see some differences, though. An invasive strategy was associated with a significantly higher risk of procedural MI [2.9% vs. 1.5%], but a significantly lower risk of nonprocedural MI [–6.4% vs. –2%].”

Dr. Bangalore added that there was significant benefit of the invasive strategy in reducing angina and improving quality of life based on the Seattle Angina Questionnaire-7. “This result was durable up to 48 months of follow-up, whether the patient had intermediate left main disease or not. These results were dependent on baseline angina status. The benefit of invasive strategy was mainly in patients who had daily, weekly, and monthly angina, and no benefit in patients with no angina; there was no interaction based on intermediate left main status.”

Dr. Bangalore emphasized that the original ISCHEMIA trial excluded patients with severe left main disease by design. “But patients with intermediate left main disease in ISCHEMIA tended to have a greater extent of coronary artery disease, indicating greater atherosclerotic burden. I don’t think that’s any surprise. They had a worse prognosis with higher risk of cardiovascular events but similar quality of life, including angina-specific quality of life.”

The key clinical message, he said, is that patients with intermediate LMD face an increased risk of cardiovascular events. “I think we have to be aggressive in trying to reduce their risk with medical therapy, etc.,” he said. “If they are symptomatic, ISCHEMIA tells us that patients have two options. They can choose an invasive strategy, because clearly there is a benefit. You have a significant benefit at making you feel better and potentially reducing the risk of spontaneous MI over a period of time. Or, you can try medical therapy first. If you do see some left main disease, it’s showing the general burden of atherosclerosis disease in those patients. I think that’s the critical message, that we have to be very aggressive with these patients.”
 

A call for more imaging studies

An invited panelist, Timothy D. Henry, MD, said that the results of the ISCHEMIA substudy should stimulate further research. “With an intermediate lesion, clearly the interventional group did better, and it wasn’t symptom related,” said Dr. Henry, medical director of the Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. “So even if you do medical therapy, you’re not going to really find it out. In my mind, this should stimulate us to do more imaging of the left main that are moderate lesions, and follow this up as an independent study. I think this is a really important finding.”

ISCHEMIA was supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Dr. Bangalore disclosed that he is a member of the advisory board and/or a board member for Meril, SMT, Pfizer, Amgen, Biotronik, and Abbott. He also is a consultant for Reata Pharmaceuticals.

[email protected]

SOURCE: Bangalore S et al. SCAI 2020, Abstract 11656.

Patients in the landmark ISCHEMIA trial with intermediate left main disease had a greater extent of coronary artery disease on invasive angiography, indicating greater atherosclerotic burden. They also had worse prognosis with a higher risk of cardiovascular events.

“Many times, we are looking at results as to whether patients have left main disease or not,” Sripal Bangalore, MD, said during the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “Here, we are showing that it’s not black and white; there are shades of gray. If a patient has intermediate left main disease, the prognosis is worse. That’s very important information we need to convey to our referrals also, because many times they may just look at the bottom line and say, ‘there is no left main disease.’ But here, we’re seeing that even having intermediate left main disease has significantly worse prognosis. We need to take that seriously.”

Prior studies show that patients with significant left main disease (LMD; defined as 50% or greater stenosis on coronary CT angiography [CCTA]) have a high risk of cardiovascular events and guidelines recommend revascularization to improve survival, said Dr. Bangalore, an interventional cardiologist at New York University Langone Health. However, the impact of intermediate LMD (defined as 25%-49% stenosis on CCTA) on outcomes is unclear.

Members of the ISCHEMIA (International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches) research group randomized 5,179 participants to an initial invasive or conservative strategy. The main results showed that immediate revascularization in patients with stable ischemic heart disease provided no reduction in cardiovascular endpoints through 4 years of follow-up, compared with initial optimal medical therapy alone.
 

‘Discordance’ revealed in imaging modalities

For the current analysis, named the ISCHEMIA Intermediate LM Substudy, those who underwent coronary CCTA comprise the LMD substudy cohort. The objective was to evaluate clinical and quality of life outcomes in patients with and without intermediate left main disease on coronary CT and to evaluate the impact of treatment strategy on those outcomes across subgroups.

At baseline, these patients were categorized into those with and without intermediate LMD as determined by a core lab. Patients with LMD of 50% or greater, those with prior coronary artery bypass graft surgery, and those with nonevaluable or missing data on LM stenosis were excluded.

Among the 3,913 ISCHEMIA participants who underwent CCTA, 3,699 satisfied the inclusion criteria. Of these patients, 962 (26%) had intermediate LMD and 2,737 (74%) did not.

The researchers observed no significant differences in baseline characteristics between patients with and without LMD. However, patients with intermediate LMD tended to be older, and a greater proportion had hypertension and diabetes. Stress test characteristics were also similar between patients with and without LMD. However, patients with intermediate LMD tended toward a greater severity of severe ischemia.

This was also true for anatomic disease on CCTA. A higher proportion of patients with intermediate LMD had triple-vessel disease (61%-62%, compared with 36%-40% along those without intermediate LMD). In addition, a higher proportion of patients with intermediate LMD had stenosis in the proximal left anterior artery descending (LAD) artery (65% vs. 39% among those without intermediate LMD).

On analysis limited to 1,846 patients who underwent invasive angiography treatment in the main ISCHEMIA trial, 7% of those who were categorized into the intermediate LMD group were found to have LMD disease of 50% or greater, compared with 1.4% of patients who were categorized as not having intermediate LMD. “This goes to show this discordance between the two modalities [CCTA and coronary angiography], and I think we have to be careful,” said Dr. Bangalore, who also directs NYU Langone’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. “There may be patients with left main disease, even if the CCTA says it’s not at 25%-29% [stenosis].”

The researchers found that, among patients who underwent invasive angiography, a greater proportion of those who were categorized into the LMD group had proximal LAD disease (43% vs. 33% among those who were categorized into the nonintermediate LMD group), triple-vessel disease (47% vs. 35%), a greater extent of coronary artery disease as denoted by a higher SYNTAX score (21 vs. 15), and a higher proportion underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (32% vs. 18%).
 

Intermediate LMD linked to worse outcomes

After the researchers adjusted for baseline differences between the two groups in overall substudy cohort, they found that intermediate LMD severity was an independent predictor of the primary composite endpoint of cardiovascular death, MI, hospitalization for unstable angina, heart failure, and resuscitated cardiac arrest (hazard ratio, 1.31; P = .0123); cardiovascular death/MI/stroke (HR, 1.30; P = .0143); procedural primary MI (HR, 1.64; P = .0487); heart failure (HR, 2.06; P = .0239); and stroke (HR, 1.82, P = .0362).

“We then looked to see if there is a treatment difference, a treatment effect based on whether patients had intermediate LMD,” Dr. Bangalore said. “Most of the P values were not significant. The results are very consistent with what we saw in the main analysis: not a significant difference between invasive and conservative strategy. We do see some differences, though. An invasive strategy was associated with a significantly higher risk of procedural MI [2.9% vs. 1.5%], but a significantly lower risk of nonprocedural MI [–6.4% vs. –2%].”

Dr. Bangalore added that there was significant benefit of the invasive strategy in reducing angina and improving quality of life based on the Seattle Angina Questionnaire-7. “This result was durable up to 48 months of follow-up, whether the patient had intermediate left main disease or not. These results were dependent on baseline angina status. The benefit of invasive strategy was mainly in patients who had daily, weekly, and monthly angina, and no benefit in patients with no angina; there was no interaction based on intermediate left main status.”

Dr. Bangalore emphasized that the original ISCHEMIA trial excluded patients with severe left main disease by design. “But patients with intermediate left main disease in ISCHEMIA tended to have a greater extent of coronary artery disease, indicating greater atherosclerotic burden. I don’t think that’s any surprise. They had a worse prognosis with higher risk of cardiovascular events but similar quality of life, including angina-specific quality of life.”

The key clinical message, he said, is that patients with intermediate LMD face an increased risk of cardiovascular events. “I think we have to be aggressive in trying to reduce their risk with medical therapy, etc.,” he said. “If they are symptomatic, ISCHEMIA tells us that patients have two options. They can choose an invasive strategy, because clearly there is a benefit. You have a significant benefit at making you feel better and potentially reducing the risk of spontaneous MI over a period of time. Or, you can try medical therapy first. If you do see some left main disease, it’s showing the general burden of atherosclerosis disease in those patients. I think that’s the critical message, that we have to be very aggressive with these patients.”
 

A call for more imaging studies

An invited panelist, Timothy D. Henry, MD, said that the results of the ISCHEMIA substudy should stimulate further research. “With an intermediate lesion, clearly the interventional group did better, and it wasn’t symptom related,” said Dr. Henry, medical director of the Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. “So even if you do medical therapy, you’re not going to really find it out. In my mind, this should stimulate us to do more imaging of the left main that are moderate lesions, and follow this up as an independent study. I think this is a really important finding.”

ISCHEMIA was supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Dr. Bangalore disclosed that he is a member of the advisory board and/or a board member for Meril, SMT, Pfizer, Amgen, Biotronik, and Abbott. He also is a consultant for Reata Pharmaceuticals.

[email protected]

SOURCE: Bangalore S et al. SCAI 2020, Abstract 11656.

Patients in the landmark ISCHEMIA trial with intermediate left main disease had a greater extent of coronary artery disease on invasive angiography, indicating greater atherosclerotic burden. They also had worse prognosis with a higher risk of cardiovascular events.

“Many times, we are looking at results as to whether patients have left main disease or not,” Sripal Bangalore, MD, said during the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “Here, we are showing that it’s not black and white; there are shades of gray. If a patient has intermediate left main disease, the prognosis is worse. That’s very important information we need to convey to our referrals also, because many times they may just look at the bottom line and say, ‘there is no left main disease.’ But here, we’re seeing that even having intermediate left main disease has significantly worse prognosis. We need to take that seriously.”

Prior studies show that patients with significant left main disease (LMD; defined as 50% or greater stenosis on coronary CT angiography [CCTA]) have a high risk of cardiovascular events and guidelines recommend revascularization to improve survival, said Dr. Bangalore, an interventional cardiologist at New York University Langone Health. However, the impact of intermediate LMD (defined as 25%-49% stenosis on CCTA) on outcomes is unclear.

Members of the ISCHEMIA (International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches) research group randomized 5,179 participants to an initial invasive or conservative strategy. The main results showed that immediate revascularization in patients with stable ischemic heart disease provided no reduction in cardiovascular endpoints through 4 years of follow-up, compared with initial optimal medical therapy alone.
 

‘Discordance’ revealed in imaging modalities

For the current analysis, named the ISCHEMIA Intermediate LM Substudy, those who underwent coronary CCTA comprise the LMD substudy cohort. The objective was to evaluate clinical and quality of life outcomes in patients with and without intermediate left main disease on coronary CT and to evaluate the impact of treatment strategy on those outcomes across subgroups.

At baseline, these patients were categorized into those with and without intermediate LMD as determined by a core lab. Patients with LMD of 50% or greater, those with prior coronary artery bypass graft surgery, and those with nonevaluable or missing data on LM stenosis were excluded.

Among the 3,913 ISCHEMIA participants who underwent CCTA, 3,699 satisfied the inclusion criteria. Of these patients, 962 (26%) had intermediate LMD and 2,737 (74%) did not.

The researchers observed no significant differences in baseline characteristics between patients with and without LMD. However, patients with intermediate LMD tended to be older, and a greater proportion had hypertension and diabetes. Stress test characteristics were also similar between patients with and without LMD. However, patients with intermediate LMD tended toward a greater severity of severe ischemia.

This was also true for anatomic disease on CCTA. A higher proportion of patients with intermediate LMD had triple-vessel disease (61%-62%, compared with 36%-40% along those without intermediate LMD). In addition, a higher proportion of patients with intermediate LMD had stenosis in the proximal left anterior artery descending (LAD) artery (65% vs. 39% among those without intermediate LMD).

On analysis limited to 1,846 patients who underwent invasive angiography treatment in the main ISCHEMIA trial, 7% of those who were categorized into the intermediate LMD group were found to have LMD disease of 50% or greater, compared with 1.4% of patients who were categorized as not having intermediate LMD. “This goes to show this discordance between the two modalities [CCTA and coronary angiography], and I think we have to be careful,” said Dr. Bangalore, who also directs NYU Langone’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. “There may be patients with left main disease, even if the CCTA says it’s not at 25%-29% [stenosis].”

The researchers found that, among patients who underwent invasive angiography, a greater proportion of those who were categorized into the LMD group had proximal LAD disease (43% vs. 33% among those who were categorized into the nonintermediate LMD group), triple-vessel disease (47% vs. 35%), a greater extent of coronary artery disease as denoted by a higher SYNTAX score (21 vs. 15), and a higher proportion underwent coronary artery bypass graft surgery (32% vs. 18%).
 

Intermediate LMD linked to worse outcomes

After the researchers adjusted for baseline differences between the two groups in overall substudy cohort, they found that intermediate LMD severity was an independent predictor of the primary composite endpoint of cardiovascular death, MI, hospitalization for unstable angina, heart failure, and resuscitated cardiac arrest (hazard ratio, 1.31; P = .0123); cardiovascular death/MI/stroke (HR, 1.30; P = .0143); procedural primary MI (HR, 1.64; P = .0487); heart failure (HR, 2.06; P = .0239); and stroke (HR, 1.82, P = .0362).

“We then looked to see if there is a treatment difference, a treatment effect based on whether patients had intermediate LMD,” Dr. Bangalore said. “Most of the P values were not significant. The results are very consistent with what we saw in the main analysis: not a significant difference between invasive and conservative strategy. We do see some differences, though. An invasive strategy was associated with a significantly higher risk of procedural MI [2.9% vs. 1.5%], but a significantly lower risk of nonprocedural MI [–6.4% vs. –2%].”

Dr. Bangalore added that there was significant benefit of the invasive strategy in reducing angina and improving quality of life based on the Seattle Angina Questionnaire-7. “This result was durable up to 48 months of follow-up, whether the patient had intermediate left main disease or not. These results were dependent on baseline angina status. The benefit of invasive strategy was mainly in patients who had daily, weekly, and monthly angina, and no benefit in patients with no angina; there was no interaction based on intermediate left main status.”

Dr. Bangalore emphasized that the original ISCHEMIA trial excluded patients with severe left main disease by design. “But patients with intermediate left main disease in ISCHEMIA tended to have a greater extent of coronary artery disease, indicating greater atherosclerotic burden. I don’t think that’s any surprise. They had a worse prognosis with higher risk of cardiovascular events but similar quality of life, including angina-specific quality of life.”

The key clinical message, he said, is that patients with intermediate LMD face an increased risk of cardiovascular events. “I think we have to be aggressive in trying to reduce their risk with medical therapy, etc.,” he said. “If they are symptomatic, ISCHEMIA tells us that patients have two options. They can choose an invasive strategy, because clearly there is a benefit. You have a significant benefit at making you feel better and potentially reducing the risk of spontaneous MI over a period of time. Or, you can try medical therapy first. If you do see some left main disease, it’s showing the general burden of atherosclerosis disease in those patients. I think that’s the critical message, that we have to be very aggressive with these patients.”
 

A call for more imaging studies

An invited panelist, Timothy D. Henry, MD, said that the results of the ISCHEMIA substudy should stimulate further research. “With an intermediate lesion, clearly the interventional group did better, and it wasn’t symptom related,” said Dr. Henry, medical director of the Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at the Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. “So even if you do medical therapy, you’re not going to really find it out. In my mind, this should stimulate us to do more imaging of the left main that are moderate lesions, and follow this up as an independent study. I think this is a really important finding.”

ISCHEMIA was supported by grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Dr. Bangalore disclosed that he is a member of the advisory board and/or a board member for Meril, SMT, Pfizer, Amgen, Biotronik, and Abbott. He also is a consultant for Reata Pharmaceuticals.

[email protected]

SOURCE: Bangalore S et al. SCAI 2020, Abstract 11656.

A new analysis from the REDUCE-IT trial has shown that the high-strength eicosapentaenoic acid product icosapent ethyl (Vascepa; Amarin) reduced the number of revascularization procedures by more than one-third in statin-treated patients whose triglyceride levels were elevated and who were at increased cardiovascular risk.

The new data were presented at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions.

REDUCE-IT, a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, randomly assigned statin-treated patients whose triglyceride levels were elevated (135-499 mg/dL), whose LDL cholesterol levels were controlled (41-100 mg/dL), and who had established cardiovascular disease or diabetes plus risk factors to receive either icosapent ethyl 4 g daily or placebo.

The primary composite and other cardiovascular endpoints were substantially reduced. Prespecified analyses examined all coronary revascularizations, recurrent revascularizations, and revascularization subtypes.

“Compared with placebo, icosapent ethyl 4 g/day significantly reduced first and total revascularization events by 34% and 36%, respectively,” REDUCE-IT investigator Benjamin Peterson, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, concluded during his presentation.

This reduction was consistent with respect to urgent, emergent, and elective revascularization procedures overall, as well as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) individually, he reported.

“Prior therapies aimed at patients with elevated triglycerides have not demonstrated a consistent benefit in reducing coronary revascularization, and to the best of our knowledge, this is the first non–LDL cholesterol intervention in a major randomized trial in which statin-treated patients underwent fewer CABG surgeries,” Dr. Peterson stated.

“These data highlight the substantial impact of icosapent ethyl on the underlying atherothrombotic burden in the at-risk REDUCE-IT population,” he added.

Detailed results showed that the percentage of patients who underwent first revascularizations was 9.2% with icosapent ethyl versus 13.3% with placebo (hazard ratio, 0.66; P < .0001; number needed to treat, 25).

Similar reductions were observed in total (first and subsequent) revascularizations (risk ratio, 0.64; P < .0001) and across urgent, emergent, and elective revascularizations. Icosapent ethyl significantly reduced the need for PCI (HR, 0.68; P < .0001) and CABG (HR, 0.61; P = .0005).

The moderator of a SCAI press conference, Kirk Garratt, MD, of the Center for Heart and Vascular Health at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del., said that “this is an impressive impact. I couldn’t count the number of zeros in the P value.”

Timothy Henry, MD, of Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, said that REDUCE-IT was an important trial. “It showed a very impressive effect on revascularizations along with all the other benefits.” But he suggested that the uptake in usage of icosapent ethyl in the United States has been slow, and he asked what could be done to enhance this.

REDUCE-IT senior investigator Deepak Bhatt, MD, replied that the product was only approved for the REDUCE-IT indication in December 2019, and he suggested that initial uptake may have been affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic.

“This new REDUCE-IT indication ― patients with established cardiovascular disease or diabetes plus risk factors who have moderately elevated triglycerides and controlled LDL ― includes a lot of patients, between 15% and 50% of all cardiovascular patients,” he said.

“We wanted to present this revascularization data at the SCAI meeting, as it is superimportant that interventional cardiologists know about this. Interventionalists have now taken ownership of LDL and make sure patients are on statins, and we hope they will now do the same thing for triglycerides,” Dr. Bhatt commented.

Dr. Henry agreed. “It should be a simple thing to take all secondary prevention patients with eligible triglycerides and be aggressive with this new therapy.”

Dr. Bhatt noted that a cost-effectiveness analysis of the REDUCE-IT trial that was presented at last year’s American Heart Association meeting “has shown the drug to be highly cost effective and actually cost saving at the current list price.”

Asked what the mechanism of benefit is, Dr. Bhatt said that “there has been good basic science showing that EPA [eicosapentaenoic acid] stabilizes cell membranes and reduces plaque vulnerability and progression.”

REDUCE-IT was sponsored by Amarin. Brigham and Women’s Hospital receives research funding from Amarin for Dr. Bhatt’s role as chair of the trial.

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

A new analysis from the REDUCE-IT trial has shown that the high-strength eicosapentaenoic acid product icosapent ethyl (Vascepa; Amarin) reduced the number of revascularization procedures by more than one-third in statin-treated patients whose triglyceride levels were elevated and who were at increased cardiovascular risk.

The new data were presented at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions.

REDUCE-IT, a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, randomly assigned statin-treated patients whose triglyceride levels were elevated (135-499 mg/dL), whose LDL cholesterol levels were controlled (41-100 mg/dL), and who had established cardiovascular disease or diabetes plus risk factors to receive either icosapent ethyl 4 g daily or placebo.

The primary composite and other cardiovascular endpoints were substantially reduced. Prespecified analyses examined all coronary revascularizations, recurrent revascularizations, and revascularization subtypes.

“Compared with placebo, icosapent ethyl 4 g/day significantly reduced first and total revascularization events by 34% and 36%, respectively,” REDUCE-IT investigator Benjamin Peterson, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, concluded during his presentation.

This reduction was consistent with respect to urgent, emergent, and elective revascularization procedures overall, as well as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) individually, he reported.

“Prior therapies aimed at patients with elevated triglycerides have not demonstrated a consistent benefit in reducing coronary revascularization, and to the best of our knowledge, this is the first non–LDL cholesterol intervention in a major randomized trial in which statin-treated patients underwent fewer CABG surgeries,” Dr. Peterson stated.

“These data highlight the substantial impact of icosapent ethyl on the underlying atherothrombotic burden in the at-risk REDUCE-IT population,” he added.

Detailed results showed that the percentage of patients who underwent first revascularizations was 9.2% with icosapent ethyl versus 13.3% with placebo (hazard ratio, 0.66; P < .0001; number needed to treat, 25).

Similar reductions were observed in total (first and subsequent) revascularizations (risk ratio, 0.64; P < .0001) and across urgent, emergent, and elective revascularizations. Icosapent ethyl significantly reduced the need for PCI (HR, 0.68; P < .0001) and CABG (HR, 0.61; P = .0005).

The moderator of a SCAI press conference, Kirk Garratt, MD, of the Center for Heart and Vascular Health at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del., said that “this is an impressive impact. I couldn’t count the number of zeros in the P value.”

Timothy Henry, MD, of Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, said that REDUCE-IT was an important trial. “It showed a very impressive effect on revascularizations along with all the other benefits.” But he suggested that the uptake in usage of icosapent ethyl in the United States has been slow, and he asked what could be done to enhance this.

REDUCE-IT senior investigator Deepak Bhatt, MD, replied that the product was only approved for the REDUCE-IT indication in December 2019, and he suggested that initial uptake may have been affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic.

“This new REDUCE-IT indication ― patients with established cardiovascular disease or diabetes plus risk factors who have moderately elevated triglycerides and controlled LDL ― includes a lot of patients, between 15% and 50% of all cardiovascular patients,” he said.

“We wanted to present this revascularization data at the SCAI meeting, as it is superimportant that interventional cardiologists know about this. Interventionalists have now taken ownership of LDL and make sure patients are on statins, and we hope they will now do the same thing for triglycerides,” Dr. Bhatt commented.

Dr. Henry agreed. “It should be a simple thing to take all secondary prevention patients with eligible triglycerides and be aggressive with this new therapy.”

Dr. Bhatt noted that a cost-effectiveness analysis of the REDUCE-IT trial that was presented at last year’s American Heart Association meeting “has shown the drug to be highly cost effective and actually cost saving at the current list price.”

Asked what the mechanism of benefit is, Dr. Bhatt said that “there has been good basic science showing that EPA [eicosapentaenoic acid] stabilizes cell membranes and reduces plaque vulnerability and progression.”

REDUCE-IT was sponsored by Amarin. Brigham and Women’s Hospital receives research funding from Amarin for Dr. Bhatt’s role as chair of the trial.

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

A new analysis from the REDUCE-IT trial has shown that the high-strength eicosapentaenoic acid product icosapent ethyl (Vascepa; Amarin) reduced the number of revascularization procedures by more than one-third in statin-treated patients whose triglyceride levels were elevated and who were at increased cardiovascular risk.

The new data were presented at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions.

REDUCE-IT, a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, randomly assigned statin-treated patients whose triglyceride levels were elevated (135-499 mg/dL), whose LDL cholesterol levels were controlled (41-100 mg/dL), and who had established cardiovascular disease or diabetes plus risk factors to receive either icosapent ethyl 4 g daily or placebo.

The primary composite and other cardiovascular endpoints were substantially reduced. Prespecified analyses examined all coronary revascularizations, recurrent revascularizations, and revascularization subtypes.

“Compared with placebo, icosapent ethyl 4 g/day significantly reduced first and total revascularization events by 34% and 36%, respectively,” REDUCE-IT investigator Benjamin Peterson, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, concluded during his presentation.

This reduction was consistent with respect to urgent, emergent, and elective revascularization procedures overall, as well as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) individually, he reported.

“Prior therapies aimed at patients with elevated triglycerides have not demonstrated a consistent benefit in reducing coronary revascularization, and to the best of our knowledge, this is the first non–LDL cholesterol intervention in a major randomized trial in which statin-treated patients underwent fewer CABG surgeries,” Dr. Peterson stated.

“These data highlight the substantial impact of icosapent ethyl on the underlying atherothrombotic burden in the at-risk REDUCE-IT population,” he added.

Detailed results showed that the percentage of patients who underwent first revascularizations was 9.2% with icosapent ethyl versus 13.3% with placebo (hazard ratio, 0.66; P < .0001; number needed to treat, 25).

Similar reductions were observed in total (first and subsequent) revascularizations (risk ratio, 0.64; P < .0001) and across urgent, emergent, and elective revascularizations. Icosapent ethyl significantly reduced the need for PCI (HR, 0.68; P < .0001) and CABG (HR, 0.61; P = .0005).

The moderator of a SCAI press conference, Kirk Garratt, MD, of the Center for Heart and Vascular Health at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del., said that “this is an impressive impact. I couldn’t count the number of zeros in the P value.”

Timothy Henry, MD, of Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, said that REDUCE-IT was an important trial. “It showed a very impressive effect on revascularizations along with all the other benefits.” But he suggested that the uptake in usage of icosapent ethyl in the United States has been slow, and he asked what could be done to enhance this.

REDUCE-IT senior investigator Deepak Bhatt, MD, replied that the product was only approved for the REDUCE-IT indication in December 2019, and he suggested that initial uptake may have been affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic.

“This new REDUCE-IT indication ― patients with established cardiovascular disease or diabetes plus risk factors who have moderately elevated triglycerides and controlled LDL ― includes a lot of patients, between 15% and 50% of all cardiovascular patients,” he said.

“We wanted to present this revascularization data at the SCAI meeting, as it is superimportant that interventional cardiologists know about this. Interventionalists have now taken ownership of LDL and make sure patients are on statins, and we hope they will now do the same thing for triglycerides,” Dr. Bhatt commented.

Dr. Henry agreed. “It should be a simple thing to take all secondary prevention patients with eligible triglycerides and be aggressive with this new therapy.”

Dr. Bhatt noted that a cost-effectiveness analysis of the REDUCE-IT trial that was presented at last year’s American Heart Association meeting “has shown the drug to be highly cost effective and actually cost saving at the current list price.”

Asked what the mechanism of benefit is, Dr. Bhatt said that “there has been good basic science showing that EPA [eicosapentaenoic acid] stabilizes cell membranes and reduces plaque vulnerability and progression.”

REDUCE-IT was sponsored by Amarin. Brigham and Women’s Hospital receives research funding from Amarin for Dr. Bhatt’s role as chair of the trial.

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.

No restriction of oral food intake prior to nonemergent cardiac catheterization is as safe as the current traditional NPO [nothing by mouth] strategy, results from a large, single-center, randomized controlled trial showed.

According to lead investigator Abhishek Mishra, MD, NPO after midnight has been a standard practice before major surgery requiring general anesthesia since Mendelson Syndrome was first described in 1946. “The rational for keeping NPO after midnight has been to keep the stomach empty, to reduce gastric contents and acidity – which would reduce emesis – and eventually reduce the risk of aspiration,” Dr. Mishra, a cardiologist at the Heart and Vascular Institute at Vidant Health in Greenville, N.C., said at the at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “The rationale of NPO in the setting of cardiac catheterization is to reduce the risk of aspiration, and more so, of a patient needing emergent cardiac surgery.” The clinical question was, do we really need to keep our patients NPO prior to elective cardiac catheterization? So far, no large randomized study has been done to answer this question.”

To find out, Dr. Mishra and colleagues carried out CHOW NOW (Can We Safely Have Our Patients Eat With Cardiac Catheterization – Nix or Allow), a single-center, prospective, randomized, single-blinded study that compared the safety of a nonfasting strategy with the current fasting protocol strategies in 599 patients who underwent nonemergent cardiac catheterization at The Guthrie Clinic/Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa.

Patients in the fasting group were instructed to be NPO after midnight, but could have clear liquids up to 2 hours prior to the procedure, while those in the nonfasting group had no restriction of oral intake, irrespective of time of cardiac catheterization. The primary outcome was a composite of aspiration pneumonia, preprocedural hypertension, preprocedural hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia, incidence of nausea/vomiting, and contrast-induced neuropathy. Secondary outcomes included total cost of the index hospitalization, patient satisfaction via a questionnaire containing seven questions, and in-hospital mortality.

Of the 599 patients, 306 were assigned to the standard fasting group and the remaining 293 to the nonfasting group. Their mean age was 67 years, 45% were on a proton pump inhibitor or H2 blockers, and 33% had diabetes. In addition, 40% had acute coronary syndrome, and 23% underwent percutaneous intervention.

The researchers observed no statistically significant difference in the primary or secondary outcomes between the study groups. In the nonfasting group, 11.3% of patients met the primary endpoint, compared with 9.8% of the patients in the standard fasting group (P = .65). In addition, the nonfasting strategy was found to be noninferior to the standard fasting strategy for the primary outcome at a noninferiority margin threshold of 0.059.

Dr. Mishra and colleagues observed no differences between the standard fasting and nonfasting groups with respect to in-hospital mortality (0.3% vs. 0.7%, respectively; P = .616), patient satisfaction score (a mean of 4.4 vs. a mean of 4.5; P = .257), and mean total cost of hospitalization ($8,446 vs. $6,960; P = .654).

“In this randomized, controlled trial, we found that there was no significant difference in the rate of overall adverse events with an approach of unrestricted oral intake prior to cardiac catheterization compared to strict fasting, and it was associated with better patient satisfaction and lower cost of care, especially for hospitalized patients,” concluded Dr. Mishra, who conducted the research during his fellowship at The Guthrie Clinic.

He acknowledged certain limitations of the trial, including the fact that results are applicable only to cardiac catheterization procedures, including coronary angiographies, percutaneous coronary interventions, and left heart catheterizations. “These results are not applicable to certain high-risk coronary procedures that required the use of a large-bore access or any valve procedures,” he said.

One of the session’s invited panelists, Cindy L. Grines, MD,, said that she and other interventional cardiologists have “gone around and around” on the issue of NPO prior to nonemergent cardiac catheterization. “I actually let my patients get fluids up until the time they’re put on the cath lab table,” said Dr. Grines, chief scientific officer of the Northside Cardiovascular Institute in Atlanta. “I haven’t been giving them solid food like this, though.”

Another panelist, Timothy D. Henry, MD, said that in his clinical experience, “patients don’t like being NPO, and I think we’ve all seen cases where patients are actually volume-depleted in the morning.” Dr. Henry, medical director of The Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, pointed out that most NPO policy “is not dictated by us as interventional cardiologists; it’s dictated by hospital policies or by anesthesiologists. Will [the results of this study] change what we do?”

The Donald Guthrie Research Foundation funded the study. Daniel P. Sporn, MD, FACC, was the study’s principal investigator. Dr. Mishra reported having no financial disclosures.

[email protected]

SOURCE: Mishra A et al., SCAI 2020, abstract 11758.

No restriction of oral food intake prior to nonemergent cardiac catheterization is as safe as the current traditional NPO [nothing by mouth] strategy, results from a large, single-center, randomized controlled trial showed.

According to lead investigator Abhishek Mishra, MD, NPO after midnight has been a standard practice before major surgery requiring general anesthesia since Mendelson Syndrome was first described in 1946. “The rational for keeping NPO after midnight has been to keep the stomach empty, to reduce gastric contents and acidity – which would reduce emesis – and eventually reduce the risk of aspiration,” Dr. Mishra, a cardiologist at the Heart and Vascular Institute at Vidant Health in Greenville, N.C., said at the at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “The rationale of NPO in the setting of cardiac catheterization is to reduce the risk of aspiration, and more so, of a patient needing emergent cardiac surgery.” The clinical question was, do we really need to keep our patients NPO prior to elective cardiac catheterization? So far, no large randomized study has been done to answer this question.”

To find out, Dr. Mishra and colleagues carried out CHOW NOW (Can We Safely Have Our Patients Eat With Cardiac Catheterization – Nix or Allow), a single-center, prospective, randomized, single-blinded study that compared the safety of a nonfasting strategy with the current fasting protocol strategies in 599 patients who underwent nonemergent cardiac catheterization at The Guthrie Clinic/Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa.

Patients in the fasting group were instructed to be NPO after midnight, but could have clear liquids up to 2 hours prior to the procedure, while those in the nonfasting group had no restriction of oral intake, irrespective of time of cardiac catheterization. The primary outcome was a composite of aspiration pneumonia, preprocedural hypertension, preprocedural hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia, incidence of nausea/vomiting, and contrast-induced neuropathy. Secondary outcomes included total cost of the index hospitalization, patient satisfaction via a questionnaire containing seven questions, and in-hospital mortality.

Of the 599 patients, 306 were assigned to the standard fasting group and the remaining 293 to the nonfasting group. Their mean age was 67 years, 45% were on a proton pump inhibitor or H2 blockers, and 33% had diabetes. In addition, 40% had acute coronary syndrome, and 23% underwent percutaneous intervention.

The researchers observed no statistically significant difference in the primary or secondary outcomes between the study groups. In the nonfasting group, 11.3% of patients met the primary endpoint, compared with 9.8% of the patients in the standard fasting group (P = .65). In addition, the nonfasting strategy was found to be noninferior to the standard fasting strategy for the primary outcome at a noninferiority margin threshold of 0.059.

Dr. Mishra and colleagues observed no differences between the standard fasting and nonfasting groups with respect to in-hospital mortality (0.3% vs. 0.7%, respectively; P = .616), patient satisfaction score (a mean of 4.4 vs. a mean of 4.5; P = .257), and mean total cost of hospitalization ($8,446 vs. $6,960; P = .654).

“In this randomized, controlled trial, we found that there was no significant difference in the rate of overall adverse events with an approach of unrestricted oral intake prior to cardiac catheterization compared to strict fasting, and it was associated with better patient satisfaction and lower cost of care, especially for hospitalized patients,” concluded Dr. Mishra, who conducted the research during his fellowship at The Guthrie Clinic.

He acknowledged certain limitations of the trial, including the fact that results are applicable only to cardiac catheterization procedures, including coronary angiographies, percutaneous coronary interventions, and left heart catheterizations. “These results are not applicable to certain high-risk coronary procedures that required the use of a large-bore access or any valve procedures,” he said.

One of the session’s invited panelists, Cindy L. Grines, MD,, said that she and other interventional cardiologists have “gone around and around” on the issue of NPO prior to nonemergent cardiac catheterization. “I actually let my patients get fluids up until the time they’re put on the cath lab table,” said Dr. Grines, chief scientific officer of the Northside Cardiovascular Institute in Atlanta. “I haven’t been giving them solid food like this, though.”

Another panelist, Timothy D. Henry, MD, said that in his clinical experience, “patients don’t like being NPO, and I think we’ve all seen cases where patients are actually volume-depleted in the morning.” Dr. Henry, medical director of The Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, pointed out that most NPO policy “is not dictated by us as interventional cardiologists; it’s dictated by hospital policies or by anesthesiologists. Will [the results of this study] change what we do?”

The Donald Guthrie Research Foundation funded the study. Daniel P. Sporn, MD, FACC, was the study’s principal investigator. Dr. Mishra reported having no financial disclosures.

[email protected]

SOURCE: Mishra A et al., SCAI 2020, abstract 11758.

No restriction of oral food intake prior to nonemergent cardiac catheterization is as safe as the current traditional NPO [nothing by mouth] strategy, results from a large, single-center, randomized controlled trial showed.

According to lead investigator Abhishek Mishra, MD, NPO after midnight has been a standard practice before major surgery requiring general anesthesia since Mendelson Syndrome was first described in 1946. “The rational for keeping NPO after midnight has been to keep the stomach empty, to reduce gastric contents and acidity – which would reduce emesis – and eventually reduce the risk of aspiration,” Dr. Mishra, a cardiologist at the Heart and Vascular Institute at Vidant Health in Greenville, N.C., said at the at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “The rationale of NPO in the setting of cardiac catheterization is to reduce the risk of aspiration, and more so, of a patient needing emergent cardiac surgery.” The clinical question was, do we really need to keep our patients NPO prior to elective cardiac catheterization? So far, no large randomized study has been done to answer this question.”

To find out, Dr. Mishra and colleagues carried out CHOW NOW (Can We Safely Have Our Patients Eat With Cardiac Catheterization – Nix or Allow), a single-center, prospective, randomized, single-blinded study that compared the safety of a nonfasting strategy with the current fasting protocol strategies in 599 patients who underwent nonemergent cardiac catheterization at The Guthrie Clinic/Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre, Pa.

Patients in the fasting group were instructed to be NPO after midnight, but could have clear liquids up to 2 hours prior to the procedure, while those in the nonfasting group had no restriction of oral intake, irrespective of time of cardiac catheterization. The primary outcome was a composite of aspiration pneumonia, preprocedural hypertension, preprocedural hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia, incidence of nausea/vomiting, and contrast-induced neuropathy. Secondary outcomes included total cost of the index hospitalization, patient satisfaction via a questionnaire containing seven questions, and in-hospital mortality.

Of the 599 patients, 306 were assigned to the standard fasting group and the remaining 293 to the nonfasting group. Their mean age was 67 years, 45% were on a proton pump inhibitor or H2 blockers, and 33% had diabetes. In addition, 40% had acute coronary syndrome, and 23% underwent percutaneous intervention.

The researchers observed no statistically significant difference in the primary or secondary outcomes between the study groups. In the nonfasting group, 11.3% of patients met the primary endpoint, compared with 9.8% of the patients in the standard fasting group (P = .65). In addition, the nonfasting strategy was found to be noninferior to the standard fasting strategy for the primary outcome at a noninferiority margin threshold of 0.059.

Dr. Mishra and colleagues observed no differences between the standard fasting and nonfasting groups with respect to in-hospital mortality (0.3% vs. 0.7%, respectively; P = .616), patient satisfaction score (a mean of 4.4 vs. a mean of 4.5; P = .257), and mean total cost of hospitalization ($8,446 vs. $6,960; P = .654).

“In this randomized, controlled trial, we found that there was no significant difference in the rate of overall adverse events with an approach of unrestricted oral intake prior to cardiac catheterization compared to strict fasting, and it was associated with better patient satisfaction and lower cost of care, especially for hospitalized patients,” concluded Dr. Mishra, who conducted the research during his fellowship at The Guthrie Clinic.

He acknowledged certain limitations of the trial, including the fact that results are applicable only to cardiac catheterization procedures, including coronary angiographies, percutaneous coronary interventions, and left heart catheterizations. “These results are not applicable to certain high-risk coronary procedures that required the use of a large-bore access or any valve procedures,” he said.

One of the session’s invited panelists, Cindy L. Grines, MD,, said that she and other interventional cardiologists have “gone around and around” on the issue of NPO prior to nonemergent cardiac catheterization. “I actually let my patients get fluids up until the time they’re put on the cath lab table,” said Dr. Grines, chief scientific officer of the Northside Cardiovascular Institute in Atlanta. “I haven’t been giving them solid food like this, though.”

Another panelist, Timothy D. Henry, MD, said that in his clinical experience, “patients don’t like being NPO, and I think we’ve all seen cases where patients are actually volume-depleted in the morning.” Dr. Henry, medical director of The Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati, pointed out that most NPO policy “is not dictated by us as interventional cardiologists; it’s dictated by hospital policies or by anesthesiologists. Will [the results of this study] change what we do?”

The Donald Guthrie Research Foundation funded the study. Daniel P. Sporn, MD, FACC, was the study’s principal investigator. Dr. Mishra reported having no financial disclosures.

[email protected]

SOURCE: Mishra A et al., SCAI 2020, abstract 11758.

A novel telemedicine approach to remotely guide ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction treatment in four Latin American countries screened more than 780,000 patients and resulted in a mortality rate of 5.2%, results from a 1-year, prospective, observational study showed.

“We have created a modality where the care of acute MI can be remotely guided,” lead investigator Sameer Mehta, MD, MBA, said during a press briefing at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “This flattens the disparity between the developed and the developing countries, particularly in the poorer parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.”

Dr. Mehta, chairman of the Lumen Foundation in Miami, and colleagues developed a “hub and spoke” platform to expand STEMI access to more than 100 million people in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina. For the effort, known as the Latin America Telemedicine Infarct Network (LATIN), “spokes” consisted of small clinics and primary health care centers in remote locations, while the “hubs” were medical centers that provided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and/or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. There were 313 spokes, 47 hubs, and more than 2,000 health care professionals who participated in the endeavor, including about 600 physicians.

The study, which is the largest of its kind, implemented a 3T strategy: telemedicine, triage, and transport, “which was the hardest part,” Dr. Mehta said. “In some cases, the spokes were located up to 300 miles away from the hubs. Up to 11% of these spokes in the remote areas did not even have a physician. Some had nurses who were triaging the patients.”

Patients who presented at spoke sites were enrolled into LATIN and data were collected through a form that included patient demographics, previous medical history, and an ECG. This information was sent through an app to one of three telemedicine diagnosis centers with 24/7 access to a cardiologist: one in Colombia, one in Brazil, one in Argentina. Once STEMI was identified by ECG, the STEMI protocol was activated, sending alerts to both designated hub and spoke sites and triggering ambulance dispatch. At the spoke sites, thrombolysis, a pharmaco-invasive strategy, or a primary PCI was performed, depending on case and treatment availability. Patients with successful thrombolysis were stabilized for up to 24 hours before transferral to a hub. Patients for whom reperfusion failed were transferred immediately to a hub for rescue PCI.

Dr. Mehta reported findings from 780,234 telemedicine encounters that occurred in the LATIN network in 2018. Telemedicine experts diagnosed 8,395 patients (1%) with STEMI, of which 3,872 (46%) were urgently treated at 47 hubs. A total of 3,015 (78%) were reperfused with PCI. Time-to-telemedicine diagnosis averaged 3.5 minutes. “It used to take us 11 minutes of time to make a diagnosis by telemedicine,” Dr. Mehta said. “By the time we were done with the trial, the time to diagnosis was brought down to 3.5 minutes.” Average door-to-balloon time was 48 minutes and the STEMI mortality was 5.2%. This represents a 55% reduction in STEMI mortality from when LATIN began as a pilot project in 2013, Dr. Mehta said.

Hypertension was the most prevalent underlying disease (59%), followed by smoking (30%) and diabetes (29%), and the male to female STEMI diagnosis ratio was 1.71. The chief reason for nontreatment was coverage denial from insurance carriers (71%). “Getting payers onboard is extremely difficult, because being located here in Miami, is it very hard for me to convince them about the importance of supporting these people,” Dr. Mehta said. “However, as time has passed [and with] coverage of LATIN by the media, the program has become better known. We have been able to work mainly through the health secretaries [in these four countries], but is difficult from there onward.”

LATIN investigators faced other hurdles, which were unique in each of the four countries. “In Colombia, we were facing all sorts of geographical challenges; Brazil was challenging because of its size of the country and [difficulty establishing relationships with] some of the inner-city hospitals,” he said. “Mexico and Argentina were unique from the telemedicine point of view.” The fact that the care of LATIN patients was navigated from one of three telemedicine diagnosis centers “demonstrates the ability of telemedicine,” he said. “If I am able to guide a patient in Mexico from Bogotá, Colombia, it should be easy to guide a patient from Miami who’s presenting in Zambia.”

Dealing with the lack of ambulance services in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina has also been a hitch to the effort. “There is either a complete lack of ambulances or there is no central ambulance system,” he said. “In one of the earlier cities where we started the program in Colombia, 84% of patients used to self-transport. At the moment, 79% are being transported by ambulance. So, the halo effect of how LATIN has helped MI management has been impressive.”

Despite the lack of a comparator study as robust as LATIN, the program was estimated to reach between $39.6 million and $119 million USD total savings during the study period. This includes the cost of tele-emergency encounters, avoided transfers, and the cost of transportation. The investigators project that by the year 2026, 5 million patients could be triaged by this telemedicine pathway, saving $249 million. “As we are getting excited about the developments and the possibilities of telemedicine in the COVID-19 era, I think the work of LATIN becomes all the more relevant,” Dr. Mehta said during his main presentation.

During the press briefing, Timothy D. Henry, MD, praised the success of LATIN in reaching an underserved population. “The majority of these patients 10 years ago were not being treated with any reperfusion therapy at all,” said Dr. Henry, medical director of The Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. “With rapid diagnosis and the process of putting [LATIN] in place, that has increased to the point where 78% are now getting primary PCI. That is remarkable.”

[email protected]

A novel telemedicine approach to remotely guide ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction treatment in four Latin American countries screened more than 780,000 patients and resulted in a mortality rate of 5.2%, results from a 1-year, prospective, observational study showed.

“We have created a modality where the care of acute MI can be remotely guided,” lead investigator Sameer Mehta, MD, MBA, said during a press briefing at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “This flattens the disparity between the developed and the developing countries, particularly in the poorer parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.”

Dr. Mehta, chairman of the Lumen Foundation in Miami, and colleagues developed a “hub and spoke” platform to expand STEMI access to more than 100 million people in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina. For the effort, known as the Latin America Telemedicine Infarct Network (LATIN), “spokes” consisted of small clinics and primary health care centers in remote locations, while the “hubs” were medical centers that provided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and/or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. There were 313 spokes, 47 hubs, and more than 2,000 health care professionals who participated in the endeavor, including about 600 physicians.

The study, which is the largest of its kind, implemented a 3T strategy: telemedicine, triage, and transport, “which was the hardest part,” Dr. Mehta said. “In some cases, the spokes were located up to 300 miles away from the hubs. Up to 11% of these spokes in the remote areas did not even have a physician. Some had nurses who were triaging the patients.”

Patients who presented at spoke sites were enrolled into LATIN and data were collected through a form that included patient demographics, previous medical history, and an ECG. This information was sent through an app to one of three telemedicine diagnosis centers with 24/7 access to a cardiologist: one in Colombia, one in Brazil, one in Argentina. Once STEMI was identified by ECG, the STEMI protocol was activated, sending alerts to both designated hub and spoke sites and triggering ambulance dispatch. At the spoke sites, thrombolysis, a pharmaco-invasive strategy, or a primary PCI was performed, depending on case and treatment availability. Patients with successful thrombolysis were stabilized for up to 24 hours before transferral to a hub. Patients for whom reperfusion failed were transferred immediately to a hub for rescue PCI.

Dr. Mehta reported findings from 780,234 telemedicine encounters that occurred in the LATIN network in 2018. Telemedicine experts diagnosed 8,395 patients (1%) with STEMI, of which 3,872 (46%) were urgently treated at 47 hubs. A total of 3,015 (78%) were reperfused with PCI. Time-to-telemedicine diagnosis averaged 3.5 minutes. “It used to take us 11 minutes of time to make a diagnosis by telemedicine,” Dr. Mehta said. “By the time we were done with the trial, the time to diagnosis was brought down to 3.5 minutes.” Average door-to-balloon time was 48 minutes and the STEMI mortality was 5.2%. This represents a 55% reduction in STEMI mortality from when LATIN began as a pilot project in 2013, Dr. Mehta said.

Hypertension was the most prevalent underlying disease (59%), followed by smoking (30%) and diabetes (29%), and the male to female STEMI diagnosis ratio was 1.71. The chief reason for nontreatment was coverage denial from insurance carriers (71%). “Getting payers onboard is extremely difficult, because being located here in Miami, is it very hard for me to convince them about the importance of supporting these people,” Dr. Mehta said. “However, as time has passed [and with] coverage of LATIN by the media, the program has become better known. We have been able to work mainly through the health secretaries [in these four countries], but is difficult from there onward.”

LATIN investigators faced other hurdles, which were unique in each of the four countries. “In Colombia, we were facing all sorts of geographical challenges; Brazil was challenging because of its size of the country and [difficulty establishing relationships with] some of the inner-city hospitals,” he said. “Mexico and Argentina were unique from the telemedicine point of view.” The fact that the care of LATIN patients was navigated from one of three telemedicine diagnosis centers “demonstrates the ability of telemedicine,” he said. “If I am able to guide a patient in Mexico from Bogotá, Colombia, it should be easy to guide a patient from Miami who’s presenting in Zambia.”

Dealing with the lack of ambulance services in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina has also been a hitch to the effort. “There is either a complete lack of ambulances or there is no central ambulance system,” he said. “In one of the earlier cities where we started the program in Colombia, 84% of patients used to self-transport. At the moment, 79% are being transported by ambulance. So, the halo effect of how LATIN has helped MI management has been impressive.”

Despite the lack of a comparator study as robust as LATIN, the program was estimated to reach between $39.6 million and $119 million USD total savings during the study period. This includes the cost of tele-emergency encounters, avoided transfers, and the cost of transportation. The investigators project that by the year 2026, 5 million patients could be triaged by this telemedicine pathway, saving $249 million. “As we are getting excited about the developments and the possibilities of telemedicine in the COVID-19 era, I think the work of LATIN becomes all the more relevant,” Dr. Mehta said during his main presentation.

During the press briefing, Timothy D. Henry, MD, praised the success of LATIN in reaching an underserved population. “The majority of these patients 10 years ago were not being treated with any reperfusion therapy at all,” said Dr. Henry, medical director of The Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. “With rapid diagnosis and the process of putting [LATIN] in place, that has increased to the point where 78% are now getting primary PCI. That is remarkable.”

[email protected]

A novel telemedicine approach to remotely guide ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction treatment in four Latin American countries screened more than 780,000 patients and resulted in a mortality rate of 5.2%, results from a 1-year, prospective, observational study showed.

“We have created a modality where the care of acute MI can be remotely guided,” lead investigator Sameer Mehta, MD, MBA, said during a press briefing at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions virtual annual scientific sessions. “This flattens the disparity between the developed and the developing countries, particularly in the poorer parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.”

Dr. Mehta, chairman of the Lumen Foundation in Miami, and colleagues developed a “hub and spoke” platform to expand STEMI access to more than 100 million people in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina. For the effort, known as the Latin America Telemedicine Infarct Network (LATIN), “spokes” consisted of small clinics and primary health care centers in remote locations, while the “hubs” were medical centers that provided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and/or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. There were 313 spokes, 47 hubs, and more than 2,000 health care professionals who participated in the endeavor, including about 600 physicians.

The study, which is the largest of its kind, implemented a 3T strategy: telemedicine, triage, and transport, “which was the hardest part,” Dr. Mehta said. “In some cases, the spokes were located up to 300 miles away from the hubs. Up to 11% of these spokes in the remote areas did not even have a physician. Some had nurses who were triaging the patients.”

Patients who presented at spoke sites were enrolled into LATIN and data were collected through a form that included patient demographics, previous medical history, and an ECG. This information was sent through an app to one of three telemedicine diagnosis centers with 24/7 access to a cardiologist: one in Colombia, one in Brazil, one in Argentina. Once STEMI was identified by ECG, the STEMI protocol was activated, sending alerts to both designated hub and spoke sites and triggering ambulance dispatch. At the spoke sites, thrombolysis, a pharmaco-invasive strategy, or a primary PCI was performed, depending on case and treatment availability. Patients with successful thrombolysis were stabilized for up to 24 hours before transferral to a hub. Patients for whom reperfusion failed were transferred immediately to a hub for rescue PCI.

Dr. Mehta reported findings from 780,234 telemedicine encounters that occurred in the LATIN network in 2018. Telemedicine experts diagnosed 8,395 patients (1%) with STEMI, of which 3,872 (46%) were urgently treated at 47 hubs. A total of 3,015 (78%) were reperfused with PCI. Time-to-telemedicine diagnosis averaged 3.5 minutes. “It used to take us 11 minutes of time to make a diagnosis by telemedicine,” Dr. Mehta said. “By the time we were done with the trial, the time to diagnosis was brought down to 3.5 minutes.” Average door-to-balloon time was 48 minutes and the STEMI mortality was 5.2%. This represents a 55% reduction in STEMI mortality from when LATIN began as a pilot project in 2013, Dr. Mehta said.

Hypertension was the most prevalent underlying disease (59%), followed by smoking (30%) and diabetes (29%), and the male to female STEMI diagnosis ratio was 1.71. The chief reason for nontreatment was coverage denial from insurance carriers (71%). “Getting payers onboard is extremely difficult, because being located here in Miami, is it very hard for me to convince them about the importance of supporting these people,” Dr. Mehta said. “However, as time has passed [and with] coverage of LATIN by the media, the program has become better known. We have been able to work mainly through the health secretaries [in these four countries], but is difficult from there onward.”

LATIN investigators faced other hurdles, which were unique in each of the four countries. “In Colombia, we were facing all sorts of geographical challenges; Brazil was challenging because of its size of the country and [difficulty establishing relationships with] some of the inner-city hospitals,” he said. “Mexico and Argentina were unique from the telemedicine point of view.” The fact that the care of LATIN patients was navigated from one of three telemedicine diagnosis centers “demonstrates the ability of telemedicine,” he said. “If I am able to guide a patient in Mexico from Bogotá, Colombia, it should be easy to guide a patient from Miami who’s presenting in Zambia.”

Dealing with the lack of ambulance services in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina has also been a hitch to the effort. “There is either a complete lack of ambulances or there is no central ambulance system,” he said. “In one of the earlier cities where we started the program in Colombia, 84% of patients used to self-transport. At the moment, 79% are being transported by ambulance. So, the halo effect of how LATIN has helped MI management has been impressive.”

Despite the lack of a comparator study as robust as LATIN, the program was estimated to reach between $39.6 million and $119 million USD total savings during the study period. This includes the cost of tele-emergency encounters, avoided transfers, and the cost of transportation. The investigators project that by the year 2026, 5 million patients could be triaged by this telemedicine pathway, saving $249 million. “As we are getting excited about the developments and the possibilities of telemedicine in the COVID-19 era, I think the work of LATIN becomes all the more relevant,” Dr. Mehta said during his main presentation.

During the press briefing, Timothy D. Henry, MD, praised the success of LATIN in reaching an underserved population. “The majority of these patients 10 years ago were not being treated with any reperfusion therapy at all,” said Dr. Henry, medical director of The Carl and Edyth Lindner Center for Research and Education at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati. “With rapid diagnosis and the process of putting [LATIN] in place, that has increased to the point where 78% are now getting primary PCI. That is remarkable.”

[email protected]