The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the delivery of primary percutaneous coronary intervention in STEMI.

Objectives: The clinical environment has been forced to adapt to meet the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Intensive care facilities were expanded in anticipation of the pandemic where the consequences include severe delays in elective procedures. Emergent procedures such as Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in which delays in timely delivery have well established adverse prognostic effects must also be explored in the context of changes in procedure and public behaviour associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 and changes in activity and treatment of ST elevation MI from a UK cardiac centre.

Background: The international healthcare response to COVID-19 has been driven by epidemiological data related to case numbers and case fatality rate. Second order effects have been less well studied. This study aimed to characterise the changes in emergency activity of a high-volume cardiac catheterisation centre and to cautiously model any excess indirect morbidity and mortality.

The impact of organisational change on transfusion practices in perioperative care: an analysis of blood product use following the merger of three London cardiac surgery units to form the Barts Heart Centre.

Objectives: In 2015, three London cardiac centres, with different transfusion infrastructure support, merged to form the Barts Heart Centre. We describe the impact on transfusion rate, blood usage and interoperator variation.

Design: Data was collected on all adult patients undergoing cardiac surgery during 2014 as well as 2016, using the National Institute Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (NICOR) data set.

Age >or=75 years is associated with greater resource utilization following coronary artery bypass grafting.

We examined whether complication rates and resource utilization among elderly patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) differed from their younger counterparts. A retrospective review of prospectively collected data was conducted of 2936 patients undergoing first-time isolated CABG. Demographic and baseline clinical characteristics were collected, and patients grouped according to age into those <75 years (n=2424, younger) and >or=75 years (n=512, older).

Are coronary angiograms of value in the risk stratification of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery?

Introduction: There are currently more than 20 risk-scoring systems that attempt to predict peri-operative mortality following coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). All these scoring systems use objective criteria to assess operative risk. Angiographic data are currently not included in any of these systems.