Chatterjee, Saurav

Background: Mortality benefit of routine intracoronary thrombus aspiration during primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has been questioned. The recent TASTE trial did not show a mortality benefit with thrombus aspiration at 1 month, however benefits from accompanying reductions in myocyte injury might accrue over time. A meta-analysis of randomized trials (RCTs) was performed to evaluate the effect of follow up duration on effectiveness of aspiration thrombectomy. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Web of Science and CINAHL databases were searched through March, 2014. We included RCTs with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients randomized to aspiration thrombectomy prior to primary PCI compared with conventional primary PCI alone. Two individuals reviewed the trials for inclusion and extracted data from the RCTs. We used random-effects models. Results: Data were pooled from 16 RCTs with 11,649 patients. All-cause mortality was significantly lower with aspiration thrombectomy after at least 12 months of follow up (Odds ratio [OR] =0. 61; 95% CI 0.37-0.99; p=0. 05). Pooled data for other time frames, i.e in-hospital, 1 month, 6 month follow up, did not reach statistical significance. Conclusion: Beneficial effects of thrombus aspiration on mortality are not evident until 12 months post-procedure, consistent with the long-term effects of myocardial salvage. Subsequent trials evaluating thrombus removal should accordingly be powered for long-term mortality in addition to known procedural and angiographic endpoints.

Catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) is being increasingly used for the treatment of proximal lower extremity (LE) deep venous thrombosis (DVT). However, sex differences in utilization and safety outcomes of CDT in these patients are unknown. The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database was used to identify all patients with a principal discharge diagnosis of proximal LE or caval DVT who underwent CDT between January 2005 and December 2011 in the United States. We evaluated the comparative safety outcomes of CDT among a propensity-matched group of 1731 men versus 1731 women. Among 108,243 patients with proximal LE or caval DVT, 4826 patients (4.5%) underwent CDT. Overall, women underwent CDT less often compared to men (4.1% vs 4.9%, p<0.01, respectively). The rates of CDT increased between 2005 and 2011 for both women (2.1% to 5.9%, p<0.01) and men (2.5% to 7.5%, p<0.01). There was no significant difference in in-hospital mortality (1.2% vs 1.3%, p=0.76). Women were noted to have higher rates of blood transfusions (11.7% vs 8.8%, p<0.01), but lower rates of intracranial hemorrhage (0.5% vs 1.2%, p=0.03) and gastrointestinal bleeding (0.9% vs 2.2%, p<0.01) compared with men. Women were more likely to undergo inferior vena cava filter placement (37.0% vs 32.1%, p<0.01). In this large nationwide cohort, women with proximal DVT were less likely to receive CDT compared to men. Although mortality rates were similar, women were noted to have higher blood transfusion rates while men had more episodes of intracranial and gastrointestinal bleeding.