Thrombus aspiration during primary angioplasty for cardiogenic shock

We sought to assess the clinical efficacy of thrombus aspiration during primary percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in patients presenting with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) complicated by cardiogenic shock (CS). We retrospectively selected 44 patients with CS out of a population of 842 STEMI patients treated with primary PCI at our Hospital between March 2003 and October 2007. Twenty-six patients died during hospital stay (59.1%, Group 1), whereas the remaining 18 were discharged (40.9%, Group 2). Post-procedural ST-segment resolution was greater (68.0%+/-35.6 vs. 43.0%+/-35.0; p=0.06) and in-hospital mortality was significantly lower (21.4% vs 76.6%; p0.01) in patients treated by TA as compared to patients undergoing standard PCI. At multivariate logistic regression analysis, TA was the only variable independently associated with survival.