Contact: Nicole Napoli, nnapoli@acc.org, 202-375-6523

WASHINGTON (Aug 19, 2020) -

The risk of in-hospital death and in-hospital heart failure increased for STEMI patients in China during the pandemic, according to research in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology; hospitals also experienced a decline in the number of heart attack patients seeking treatments, delays in time to treatment and changes in treatment protocols. 

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak on January 23, 2020, China Chest Pain Center’s Executive Committee recommended prioritizing thrombolytic treatment for most patients with unconfirmed COVID-19 status in areas affected by the outbreak to ensure timely reperfusion therapy for patients and control in-hospital infection. As the pandemic developed, experts in Iran, Palestine and Jordan recommended similar protocols, while those in the United States, Italy, Australia and New Zealand have recommended continuing with existing PCI protocols except in special circumstances. 

STEMI is the most serious type of heart attack and is caused by a total blockage of one of the heart’s major arteries. Minimizing the amount of time it takes to restore flow in a totally blocked artery is of critical importance in preventing damage to the heart muscle. PCI, which is a procedure to place a stent in a blocked blood vessel of the heart, is the standard guideline-recommended treatment, but it is invasive, and the screening and infection control procedures required to reduce the spread of COVID-19 could delay PCI and cause a greater risk to the patient. Thrombolysis uses a clot-busting drug that can be administered in the emergency department through a standard IV inserted into the patient’s vein, which can reduce the time and resources needed to restore blood flow to a totally blocked artery.

In the first study of its kind, researchers evaluated the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and China Chest Pain Center’s modified STEMI protocol on the treatment and prognosis of STEMI patients in China. Data were reviewed from 28,189 STEMI patients admitted to 1,372 Chest Pain Centers between December 27, 2019 and February 20, 2020. A total of 25,150 (89.2%) of patients met the inclusion criteria.

There was about a 26% drop in weekly hospitalized STEMI cases during the outbreak nationwide, and a 62% drop in Hubei province, which was the epicenter of the outbreak in China. This suggests STEMI patients were less likely to access care during the outbreak, which is similar to trends seen worldwide. Consistent with new protocols, the percentage of primary PCI dropped by half, while the percentage of thrombolysis increased four-fold in Hubei province. In other less affected provinces, there were slight decrease in the percentage of primary PCI and slight increases in the percentage of thrombolysis. 

Despite these changes, the percentage of STEMI patients receiving timely reperfusion therapy during the outbreak dropped from 59.4% to 51.6% in Hubei province during the COVID-19 outbreak and from 65.1% to 60.1% in other provinces. Researchers also found that the COVID-19 outbreak delayed primary PCI for about 21 minutes in Hubei province and about four minutes in other provinces; the delay for thrombolytic treatment was close to 23 minutes in Hubei province and close to five minutes in other provinces.

Overall, the rates of in-hospital mortality and in-hospital heart failure increased from 4.6% to 7.3% and from 14.2% to 18.4% in Hubei province during the outbreak period, respectively. Other provinces saw smaller increases of 4% to 4.7% for in-hospital mortality and 13.2% to 14% for in-hospital heart failure. There did not appear to be differences in in-hospital hemorrhage. 

“Our findings provide much needed empirical evidence for health care professionals searching for a balance between optimizing timely treatment for STEMI patients and protecting health care workers and vulnerable cardiovascular patients from the risk of COVID-19 infection,” said Dingcheng Xiang, MD, lead author of the study and a cardiologist in the department of cardiology, General Hospital of Southern Theatre Command of PLA in Guangzhou, China. “Despite the inevitable delays in treatment timeline due to mandatory infection control procedures and changes in reperfusion strategies during the outbreak, the proportion of patients receiving effective reperfusion remained stable.”

Limitations of the study include that because there was little time between the start of China’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak and the release of the modified STEMI protocol, this observational study cannot fully dissociate the effects of the modified protocol from the other aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak that contribute to the deterioration of STEMI patient prognosis. Also, researchers were unable to assess the extent to which modified protocol protected health care workers and other vulnerable cardiovascular patients from COVID-19 infection due to the lack of complete data on nosocomial infection. However, researchers suggest the protocol was likely effective in this regard. 

In a related editorial comment, Lauren S. Ranard, MD, Sahil A. Parikh, MD, and Ajay J. Kirtane, MD, SM, cardiologists at Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York-Presbyterian Hospital, state that PCI should remain the preferred method of revascularization for STEMI patients, irrespective of COVID-19, especially in areas with adequate PPE and timely access to PCI, and noted that bleeding risk might be higher than the study suggests.

“Widespread adaptation of [thrombolysis] as the preferred reperfusion approach may unnecessarily expose many patients to bleeding risk. The low total number of patients with bleeding events in this report, despite increasing adoption of [thrombolysis], suggests potential under-reporting of these outcomes, which are not readily ascertained as outcomes such as overall mortality,” Ranard said. “However, this study has added to the growing evidence base that COVID-19 epicenters have had a decline in hospitalized STEMI cases, in conjunction with increases in time to reperfusion. Despite a protocol-based recommendation to change to a strategy of [thrombolysis] to attempt to reduce these delays in reperfusion, increases in mortality and heart failure were still observed. The old adage of ‘time is muscle’ therefore remains true, pandemic or not.”

The American College of Cardiology envisions a world where innovation and knowledge optimize cardiovascular care and outcomes. As the professional home for the entire cardiovascular care team, the mission of the College and its 54,000 members is to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health. The ACC bestows credentials upon cardiovascular professionals who meet stringent qualifications and leads in the formation of health policy, standards and guidelines. The College also provides professional medical education, disseminates cardiovascular research through its world-renowned JACC Journals, operates national registries to measure and improve care, and offers cardiovascular accreditation to hospitals and institutions. For more, visit acc.org.

The Journal of the American College of Cardiology ranks among the top cardiovascular journals in the world for its scientific impact. JACC is the flagship for a family of journals—JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions, JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging, JACC: Heart Failure, JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology, JACC: Basic to Translational Science, JACC: Case Reports and JACC: CardioOncology—that prides themselves in publishing the top peer-reviewed research on all aspects of cardiovascular disease. Learn more at JACC.org.

###

< Back to Listings