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The Western Washington Randomized Trial of Intracoronary Streptokinase in Acute Myocardial Infarction — A 12-Month Follow-up Report
List of authors.Abstract
After cardiac catheterization and coronary arteriography, 134 patients who had had an acute myocardial infarction were randomly assigned to treatment with intracoronary streptokinase (4000 U per minute, begun approximately 4 1/2 hours after the onset of symptoms, for a total of 286,000±77,800 U over 72±24 minutes); 116 control patients received standard care after they returned to the coronary care unit, immediately after angiography.
Preliminary results of this trial have been published in the Journal (1983; 309:1477–81). During the first 30 days, 5 deaths occurred in the streptokinase group and 13 occurred in the control group (3.7 vs 11.2 per cent, P = 0.02); during the first year, the corresponding figures were 11 and 17 deaths (8.2 vs. 14.7 percent, P = 0.10). However, when a minor imbalance in the ejection fraction and infarct location between the two groups was adjusted by logistic regression, the difference in one-year mortality became significant (P = 0.03). In the streptokinase group, 2 of the 80 patients in whom perfusion was reestablished (2.5 per cent) had died by one year, whereas 3 of the 13 with partial reperfusion (23.1 per cent) and 6 of the 41 with no reperfusion (14.6 per cent) had died (P = 0.008). Mortality among patients with partial reperfusion was not significantly different from that among those without reperfusion (P>0.90). No base-line clinical, angiographic, or hemodynamic variable was predictive of successful reperfusion, according to univariate and multivariate analyses.
We conclude that intracoronary streptokinase reduces one-year mortality among patients with acute myocardial infarction, but this improvement occurs only among those in whom thrombolysis results in coronary artery reperfusion. (N Engl J Med 1985; 312:1073–8.)
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