Aims: The recommendation for the use of the intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) as adjunct in patients with cardiogenic shock undergoing primary PCI in current guidelines is controversial. We sought to investigate the use and impact of the outcome of IABP in current practice of percutaneous coronary interventions in Germany.
Methods and results: Between January 2006 and December 2011, a total of 55,008 consecutive patients with acute coronary syndromes undergoing PCI in 41 hospitals were enrolled into the prospective Arbeitsgemeinschaft Leitende Kardiologische Krankenhausärzte registry. Of these, 22,039 had STEMI and 32,969 had NSTEMI, and cardiogenic shock was observed in 1,435 (6.5 %) and 478 (1.4 %), respectively. Of the total of 1,913 patients with shock, 487 (25.5 %) were treated with IABP. In-hospital mortality with and without IABP was 43.5 and 37.4 %. In the multivariate analysis, the use of IABP was associated with a strong trend for an increased mortality (odds ratio 1.45, 95 % CI 1.15-1.84).
Conclusion: In the current clinical practice in Germany, IABP is used only in one quarter of patients with cardiogenic shock treated with primary PCI. We observed no benefit of IABP on outcome, which supports the findings of the randomized IABP-Shock II trial.