Paniagua, David

Introduction: There is paucity of data on the relationship between hospital procedural volume and outcomes of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures in the past decade. Methods: We queried the National Inpatient Sample database (2010-2016) for hospitalizations undergoing primary PCI for STEMI. Hospitals were divided into 3 groups: low-volume (<36 primary PCI/ year), moderate-volume (36-72 primary PCI/year) and high-volume (>72 primary PCI/ year). The main outcome was in-hospital mortality. Results: The analysis included 694,505 hospitalizations for primary PCI. There were 329,878 (47.5%) primary PCI procedures performed at low-volume hospitals, 224,317 (32.3%) at moderate-volume, and 140,223 (20.2%) at high-volume hospitals. Compared with high-volume hospitals, low-volume hospitals were associated with higher in-hospital mortality in the unadjusted model (5.3% vs. 4.8%, odds ratio [OR] 1.10; 95% confidence interval-CI 1.02-1.18, p=0.01) and on multivariable analysis (adjusted-OR 1.15; 95%CI 1.04-1.27, p=0.01). There was no difference between moderate-volume and high-volume hospital in unadjusted analysis (5.1% vs. 4.8%, OR 1.07; 95%CI 0.99-1.15, p=0.11) and on multivariable analysis (adjusted-OR 1.08; 95%CI 0.97-1.20, p=0.17). Conclusions: This nationwide analysis showed that low-volume hospitals are associated with higher in-hospital mortality after primary PCI compared with high-volume hospitals even in recent years. The current threshold set by national guidelines for primary PCI hospitals remains valid in contemporary practice.