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News release: Colorado - Denver/BoulderDecember 27, 2000 For more information, call: New study helps physicians choose best therapy for heart attack patients Denver, CO – Research led by two Kaiser Permanente physicians helps solve the riddle of which therapy is best for treating heart attack patients. The findings are published in the December 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study involving David Magid, MD, and Ned Calonge, MD, compared angioplasty versus thrombolytic therapy when treating heart attack patients in various hospital settings. Angioplasty is a surgery where a balloon is inserted to reconstruct the blood vessel. Thrombolytic therapy uses intravenous drugs known as "clot busters." The national study involved 446 hospitals and more than 62,000 patients. It found that in hospitals that care for relatively few heart attack patients, either treatment can be effective. But in hospitals seeing a high volume of heart attack patients, angioplasty is the more effective treatment. In fact, for every 50 heart attacks at high-volume hospitals, one life can be saved through angioplasty. "Seldom in medicine can you take just 50 cases and say one life in that group could have been saved," Dr. Magid said. Doctors welcome this information because now they can choose the most effective treatment for their patients, depending on location and availability of angioplasty. The findings also arm emergency medical services with information to consider when deciding where to take heart attack patients. It is important to note that the most effective treatment for heart attack is that which is given quickest. Both angioplasty and thrombolytic therapy are effective therapies in treating heart attack. This study points out certain situations where one therapy may be better than the other.
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