New Tack on Heart Attacks Could Save Lives
April 4 -- The method used for treating heart attacks in this country for more than 15 years has been called into question by a landmark study, which suggests that thousands of lives could be saved by a new approach.
The momentum for a change is so strong that one major U.S. city has already taken steps to implement it, and there are signs that heart specialists overseas are rethinking their strategy as well.
Since 1986, heart attacks have been treated by giving patients drugs called clot-busters, which break up the clots in the artery that cause heart attacks. But in recent years, hospitals with special cardiac catheterization laboratories have been bringing heart attack patients into these labs, inserting a catheter, and opening up the artery with a tiny balloon.
This approach was considered too costly and too slow to be effective, since it required bringing the patient into a laboratory and doing a procedure.
But a study from Denmark suggests that the "cath lab" treatment for heart attacks when compared to clot-busters actually saved lives, even if patients had to travel to other hospitals to receive it.
"This could result in the saving of more than 10,000 lives per year in the U.S. alone, and the prevention of countless heart attacks and needless strokes," said Dr. Gregg Stone, director of cardiovascular research and education at the Lenox Hill Heart and Vascular Institute in New York.
"I think that it will [change current practice]," added Dr. David Faxon, president of the American Heart Association. "How much, I don't know."
Study Looked at Patients Transferred to Cath Labs
The Danish Myocardial Infarction Study II, or DANAMI II, explored the possibility of transferring patients suffering from certain heart attacks from community facilities that could not perform angioplasty to hospitals with invasive cath labs. The patients were experiencing a sub-type of heart attack known as ST elevation that accounts for roughly 40 percent of heart attacks in the United States.
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