Journal of general internal medicine
-
Meta Analysis Comparative Study
Is primary angioplasty for some as good as primary angioplasty for all?
To investigate whether proper patient selection might allow most of the benefits of population-wide primary coronary angioplasty to be captured in a subgroup of high-risk patients. ⋯ Most of the incremental benefits of primary angioplasty can be achieved by treating high-risk patients. For these patients, thrombolytic therapy may be difficult to justify if nearby primary angioplasty is available. For most patients, however, thrombolytic therapy appears to be an effective alternative.