Objectives

To assess whether intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) given in the early hours of acute myocardial infarction should be followed by percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA).

Background

At the start of the clinical trial, coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for almost 500,000 deaths each year. Studies had confirmed that myocardial infarction is related to an occlusive coronary thrombus in up to 80 percent of patients. First and second-generation thrombolytic agents (including streptokinase and rt-PA) had been successfully used to restore myocardial blood flow where thrombus has occluded an infarct-related coronary artery. However, further clinical investigation were necessary to determine the most suitable thrombolytic agent dose and method of administration, the risk of subsequent reocclusion, restenosis, and/or myocardial infarction, the need for additional therapies, and the likelihood of benefit or hemorrhagic complications.

Participants

Patient entry began in April 1986 and ended in June 1988 with enrollment of 3,534 patients who had presented within 4 hours of the onset of chest pain thought to be caused by myocardial infarction. Enrollment criteria were men and women between the ages of 18 and 75.

Design

Patients were treated with intravenous rt-PA within four hours of the onset of chest pain thought to be caused by myocardial infarction and randomly assigned to an invasive strategy or a conservative strategy. The primary endpoint was survival free of recurrent myocardial infarction at six weeks and one year of follow-up. There were 1,681 patients assigned to the delayed invasive strategy in which catheterization was performed between 18 and 48 hours after rt-PA therapy. If catheterization showed a greater than 60 percent subtotal stenosis of the infarct-related artery that was considered to be technically approachable, angioplasty was attempted.
Angioplasty was performed in 60.5 percent of the 1,500 patients who underwent catheterization in the invasive strategy group. The remaining 39.5 percent or 593 patients did not have angioplasty performed. There were 1,658 patients assigned to a conservative strategy in which cardiac catheterization was reserved for the 587 patients who had spontaneous or exercise-induced myocardial ischemia within 21 days of infarction. A total of 13.5 percent of patients in this arm underwent coronary angioplasty, 7.6 percent underwent bypass surgery, and 1.1 percent underwent both procedures; 77 percent of the patients in the conservative strategy group had no revascularization procedure within 21 days of infarction.

TIMI IIA, a subtrial of 586 patients, investigated whether immediate cardiac catheterization with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, when appropriate, would confer an advantage over the same procedure performed 18 to 48 hours later. All patients were treated with intravenous rt-PA within four hours of the onset of acute myocardial infarction.

Additional Details

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