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Objective: To determine whether ethnic-specific differences in the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and outcomes exist worldwide among individuals with stable arterial disease., Patients and Methods: From December 1, 2003, to June 30, 2004, the prospective, observational REduction of Atherothrombosis for Continued Health (REACH) Registry enrolled 49,602 out-patients with coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, and/or peripheral arterial disease from 7 predefined ethnic/racial groups: white, Hispanic, East Asian, South Asian, Other Asian, black, and Other (comprising any race distinct from those specified). The baseline demographic and risk factor profiles, medication use, and 2-year cardiovascular outcomes were assessed among these groups., Results: The prevalence of traditional atherothrombotic risk factors varied significantly among the ethnic/racial groups. The use of medical therapies to reduce risk was comparable among all groups. At 2-year follow-up, the rate of cardiovascular death was significantly higher in blacks (6.1%) compared with all other ethnic/racial groups (3.9%; P=.01). Cardiovascular death rates were significantly lower in all 3 Asian ethnic/racial groups (overall, 2.1%) compared with the other groups (4.5%; P<.001)., Conclusion: The REACH Registry, a large international study of individuals with atherothrombotic disease, documents the important ethnic-specific differences in cardiovascular risk factors and variations in cardiovascular mortality that currently exist worldwide.

Background: Accurate estimation of bleeding risk in patients undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is difficult and not based on widely accepted scores or characteristics. We developed and validated a simple prediction model for major bleeding using the SafeTy and Efficacy of Enoxaparin in PCI patients, an internationaL randomized Evaluation (STEEPLE) trial, which demonstrated the superior safety of enoxaparin over unfractionated heparin (UFH) in 3528 patients undergoing elective PCI., Methods and Results: Independent predictors of non-coronary artery bypass graft (CABG)-related major bleeding events were determined using stepwise multivariate logistic regression analysis from a development dataset using bootstrap resampling. These predictors were assigned an integer coefficient (risk score) proportional to the estimated coefficient from the logistic model. Risk scores were tested in a validation cohort. Female sex, use of unfractionated heparin (vs. enoxaparin), and use of a glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor (vs. nonuse) were the strongest independent predictors of bleeding. Extensive testing found that the final model performed well with bootstrap resampling in the development set (c-statistic 0.75; 95% CI: 0.70-0.82; Hosmer-Lemeshow p = 0.29), validation set (c-statistic 0.67; Hosmer-Lemeshow p = 0.12), and subgroups of high-risk patients analysed from the validation set (c-statistic ≥ 0.67)., Conclusions: Our model for evaluating the risk of non-CABG-related major bleeding in patients undergoing elective PCI identified sex, the type of antithrombin used, and glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor use as important indicators of bleeding risk, and accurately predicted the incidence of non-CABG-related major bleeding in patients undergoing elective PCI in the STEEPLE trial., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Aims: To determine the relationship between anticoagulation levels during percutaneous coronary intervention, and ischaemic events and bleeding., Methods and Results: A sub-analysis from the STEEPLE trial was conducted. Pre-defined target anticoagulation levels were achieved in 86% of patients receiving enoxaparin, compared with 20% receiving unfractionated heparin (UFH) (P < 0.001). A significant relationship was observed between anti-Xa levels > 0.9 IU/mL and covariate-adjusted rate of non-coronary artery bypass graft-related major and minor bleeding [odds ratio (OR) 1.6, 95% CI 1.0-2.5 for each unit of anti-Xa; P = 0.03]; anti-Xa levels and covariate-adjusted incidence of death, myocardial infarction, or revascularization showed no significance (P = 0.47). Major bleeding increased significantly with an activated clotting time (ACT) > 325 s (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2.2 per 100 s; P = 0.04). A significant relationship with increasing ischaemic events was observed when ACT was < 325 s (OR 0.7, 95% CI 0.2-0.8 per 100 s; P = 0.006) indicating a narrow therapeutic window., Conclusion: Target anticoagulation levels were achieved more readily in patients receiving enoxaparin. An anti-Xa level of up to 0.9 IU/mL has a good safety and efficacy profile; poor achievement of target ACT with UFH makes assessing the optimal range difficult.