Early Discharge After Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

• Primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) has become the optimal reperfusion strategy for ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) when the procedure is performed expeditiously and at a high-volume centre.In contrast to the clarity of how to treat STEMI, there is no clear definition for when to discharge and which patient to discharge.
• It is conceivable to discharge patients with successful PPCI as early as possible, because a hospital stay longer than needed may create undesirable outcomes in terms of hospital infections, psychosocial reasons, adequate mobilization and patient comfort. In many tertiary centres with a busy PPCI programme insufficient bed capacity is an ongoing concern and threatens the continuous acceptance of new cases of acute infarctions. In addition, it has been indicated that an early discharge policy may lead to a substantial cost saving.
• Although much work has been done in developing and validating risk scores that identify low risk patients, data on the implementation of early discharge strategies have been quite limited There are 3 randomised trials investigating the possibility of early discharge after PPCI. However, certain limitations of these studies are preventing to implement an early discharge strategy in all-comers, particularly because of the underrepresentation of older patients in clinical trials. The verification of this policy is also needed in patients with multivessel disease. The first prospective randomized trial, the PAMI II,7 is partly obsolete as major changes have been made in PPCI with respect to devices and adjunctive medication. The other two randomized trials were single-center pilot studies with small number of patients.
• Therefore, the above mentioned literature information warrants to test the reproducibility of safety endpoints in a large scale multicenter trial, prior to application of the early discharge strategy in clinical practice.

Inclusion criteria

• Signed informed consent and subsequent written agreement of a family member (confirming good social background)
• Acute STEMI, defined as >30 minutes of continuous typical chest pain and ST-segment elevation ≥2 mm in two contiguous electrocardiography leads and /or left bundle branch block within 12 hours of symptom onset.
• Haemodynamically stable Angiographically
• Successful PPCI procedure (TIMI 2-3 flow and %<20 residual stenosis) and an uneventful 24 hour follow up period
• Single epicardial artery to be treated
• Telephone contact between the patient and PCI center after discharge is available 24 hours daily

Exclusion criteria

• Inability to consent
• Patients treated with thrombolytic agents for the index STEMI
• Cardiogenic shock,
• Stroke within a month,
• Signs of heart failure (Killip II-IV)
• Hypotension (<100 mmHg SBP) persisting after PPCI
• Chest pain recurrence
• Clinically significant arrhythmia (requiring treatment) occurring >6 hours after PPCI.