Use of aldosterone antagonists at discharge after myocardial infarction: results from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry Acute Coronary Treatment and Intervention Outcomes Network (ACTION) Registry-Get with the Guidelines (GWTG).
Journal Article
Background
Aldosterone antagonists (AldA) improve survival after myocardial infarction (MI) in patients with left ventricular systolic dysfunction (ejection fraction [EF] <40%) concomitant with either clinical heart failure (HF) or diabetes mellitus (DM). Although current American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines provide a class I recommendation for AldA therapy in such patients, how US practice reflects these recommendations is unclear.Methods
Using data from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry ACTION Registry-GWTG, we describe contemporary discharge AldA prescription patterns among 202,213 patients discharged after acute MI from 526 US sites participating in ACTION Registry-GWTG between January 2007 and March 2011.Results
Overall, 10.0% of patients were eligible for AldA without documented contraindication, with only 14.5% of eligible patients receiving AldA at discharge. Among the subset of AldA-eligible patients discharged on otherwise optimal medical therapy (68.9%), AldAs were prescribed to 16.1%. Aldosterone antagonist use was higher in patients with EF <40% and clinical HF with or without DM (17.7% and 16.6%, respectively), compared with patients with EF <40% and DM without clinical HF (7.8%, P < .001 for each). Fewer than 2% of participating centers used AldA in ≥50% of eligible patients.Conclusions
Despite clinical outcome evidence and class I guideline recommendations, AldAs are underused in the United States, with only 1 in 7 eligible patients prescribed AldA at discharge after MI. This contrasts with high use of other evidence-based post-MI medications and identifies a specific gap in translation of evidence into clinical practice.Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Rao, KK; Enriquez, JR; de Lemos, JA; Alexander, KP; Chen, AY; McGuire, DK; Fonarow, GC; Das, SR
Published Date
- October 2013
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 166 / 4
Start / End Page
- 709 - 715
PubMed ID
- 24093851
Pubmed Central ID
- 24093851
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1097-6744
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0002-8703
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1016/j.ahj.2013.06.020
Language
- eng