Comparison of Success Rate Between Distal Radial Approach and Radial Approach in STEMI

ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is an emergent disease to treat as soon as possible. 2017 ESC guidelines for the management of STEMI recommend using radial approach (RA) rather than femoral approach (FA) to reduce mortality and bleeding complications if the operators are expert for RA. Recently, Ferdinand Kiemeneij reported that distal radial approach (DRA) could be a feasible and safe route for coronary angiography (CAG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in 70 patients. The right-handed patient could feel more comfortable in left DRA than right RA. Left DRA also could provide a better comfortable position for the operator compared to left RA. Distal radial artery is located around the anatomical snuffbox, which doesn't contain nerve and vein beside artery. Therefore, the possibility of procedure-related complications such as nerve injury or arteriovenous fistula is very low. Also, the superficial location of DRA could make easier hemostasis. There were no vascular-related complications from the report of Kiemeneij. But, the rate of puncture failure was 11%, which was higher than RA-based study (5.34% in STEMI patients of RIVAL trial, 6% in RIFLESTEACS trial and 5.8% in MATRIX trial). Nevertheless, this study was a pilot study with a small number of patients. There is no clinical study to compare the feasibility and safety for CAG and PCI between DRA and RA in patients with STEMI. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate whether DRA is feasible and safe compared to RA in STEMI setting.