Quick angioplasty post heart attack better

NEWMARKET, Ontario, June 25 (UPI) -- Heart attack patients who undergo angioplasty within six hours of receiving clot-busting drugs, have better outcomes, Canadian medical researchers say.

Dr. Warren Cantor of Southlake Regional Health Center in Newmarket, Ontario, and Dr. Shaun Goodman of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto say their study involved a large group of Canadian cardiologists, internists, emergency department physicians and paramedics.

It was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and coordinated by the Canadian Heart Research Center.

The study tracked 1,059 heart attack patients who were treated with clot-busting drugs at community hospital emergency departments in the provinces of Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec.

The researchers compared a strategy of transferring heart attack patients to hospitals with onsite angioplasty facilities to undergo angioplasty within six hours after administration of clot-busting drugs, as opposed to the traditional approach of transferring only those patients when clot-busting drug treatments are unsuccessful.

Patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups -- urgent transfer for angioplasty within six hours, or standard care -- no transfer for angioplasty within the first 24 hours unless the medication failed to restore blood flow in the blocked artery.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found 17 percent of patients receiving standard care had serious cardiac complications within 30 days, compared with 11 percent of those transferred immediately for angioplasty.