Welcome to InCirculation.net
InCirculation.net is a professional cardiovascular resource intended for a global audience of specialists, generalists, researchers, and other healthcare professionals
Cardiovascular news provides daily news updates to help you stay informed.
Same-day discharge ‘safe’ for elective PCI patients
27 August 2010
MedWire News: Same-day discharge of patients undergoing uncomplicated elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is feasible, suggest US researchers.
In fact, even when a femoral approach is used, discharging such patients several hours after PCI remains relatively complication-free, say Mehul Patel (Mount Sinai Hospital, New York) and colleagues.
They warn however, that early discharge is only low-risk in patients who meet specific demographic, angiographic, procedural, and post-procedural criteria such as an absence of acute coronary syndrome, and PCI using no more than four stents.
The researchers compared the outcomes of 2400 patients undergoing uncomplicated elective PCI, discharged a mean of 8.2 hours after completion of the procedure. In all, 99.5% of the patients had PCI performed via a transfemoral route, and 0.5% had transradial PCI.
The findings, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions, showed that interventional procedure success, defined as uncomplicated vascular access with successful deployment of closure device, occurred in 97% of patients.
The team also found encouraging 30-day outcomes, with no incidents of closure device related complications, death, myocardial infarction, or cerebrovascular accident noted among the patients.
In addition, only 0.96% of patients had major adverse cardiac cerebral events or bleeding/vascular complications up to 30 days post-PCI.
“Our study in a diverse patient population supports the importance of careful selection guidelines for determining the suitability of same-day discharge so that in-hospital resources can be predictably allocated,” explain Patel et al.
They conclude: “Same-day discharge is likely to improve patient comfort and reduce utilization of hospital resources.”
Your opinion matters - help to shape the future of InCirculation.net by completing our short survey. 
