Contribution of First Contact With a Cardiologist to the Door-to-Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory Time in Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction Complicated by Cardiogenic Shock - Data From K-ACTIVE.

Background: Current guidelines recommend early revascularization in patients with cardiogenic shock (CS) following acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, guideline-recommended first medical contact-to-device times is reportedly achieved in only 40% of patients.

Methods and results: We retrospectively analyzed 369 patients with AMI complicated by CS from the Kanagawa-Acute Cardiovascular Registry to evaluate factors influencing delays in treatment and their effect on in-hospital mortality. Patients were stratified into 2 groups based on the median door-to-cardiac catheterization laboratory (D2C) time (≤39 or >39 min). In the group with D2C time ≤39 min, the first-contact physician was more frequently a cardiologist (71.9% vs. 47.0%; P<0.001) and significantly more patients had chest pain as the chief complaint (70.3% vs. 47.4%; P<0.001). Although pre- and post-percutaneous coronary intervention Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction flow was similar between the 2 groups, in-hospital mortality was significantly lower in the D2C time ≤39 min group (18.8% vs. 37.6%; P<0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that D2C time >39 min was independently associated with a non-cardiologist being the first-contact physician, the absence of chest pain, a higher heart rate, and elevated creatinine levels.

Conclusions: D2C time ≤39 min is correlated with reduced mortality in AMI patients with CS. Implementing systems to ensure cardiologists are the initial responders and optimizing in-hospital workflows could reduce the D2C time and improve outcomes.