Objectives: To examine the extent to which evidence-based beneficial therapy is applied in practice, whether this is changing over time and is associated with improved outcomes.
Background: Randomized trials have proved efficacy of several treatments for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) with ST-elevation (STEMI), non-ST-elevation (NSTEMI) and bundle branch block (BBB).
Design and setting: We prospectively examined all 6748 consecutive patients with AMI aged 25-74 years hospitalized in the study region's major clinic stratified into four time-periods: 1985-1989 (n = 1622), 1990-1994 (n = 1588), 1995-1999 (n = 1450) and 2000-2004 (n = 2088).
Results: The increase in numbers of AMI in the last period was mainly, but not exclusively driven by NSTEMI cases. Evidence-based pharmacological therapy increased steeply over time. Invasive procedures increased mainly in the last period with percutaneous coronary intervention and coronary artery bypass graft performed in 30% and 15% in 1998 and 66.0% and 22%, respectively, in 2004. In-hospital complications and 28-day-case fatality decreased significantly from period 1 to period 4 in all patients with AMI. Marked reductions in 28-day-case fatality were mostly seen in BBB patients during the last period (25.3% vs. 10.3%, P < 0.001). Of interest, the odds in 28-day-case fatality reduction was diminished after correction for recanalization therapy (from 0.35, 95% CI: 0.16-0.74 to 0.52, 95% CI: 0.19-1.45).
Conclusions: Over the past 20 years, there were substantial changes in pharmacological and interventional therapies in AMI accompanied by reductions in in-hospital complications and 28-day-case fatality in all infarction types with marked reductions in 28-day-case fatality in BBB patients. The latter observation may mainly be because of the increased use of interventional therapy.