James L. Ritchie

Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Valvular Heart Disease Executive Summary A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee on Management of Patients With Valvular Heart Disease)

This executive summary and recommendations appears in the November 3, 1998, issue of Circulation . The guidelines in their entirety, including the ACC/AHA Class I, II, and III recommendations, are published in the November 1, 1998, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology . Reprints of both the full text and the executive summary and recommendations are available from both organizations. During the past 2 decades, major advances have occurred in diagnostic techniques, the understanding of natural history, and interventional cardiological and surgical procedures for patients with valvular heart disease. The information base from which to make clinical management decisions has greatly expanded in recent years, yet in many situations, management issues remain controversial or uncertain. Unlike many other forms of cardiovascular disease, there is a scarcity of large-scale multicenter trials addressing the diagnosis and treatment of valvular disease from which to derive definitive conclusions, and the literature represents primarily the experiences reported by single institutions in relatively small numbers of patients. The Committee on Management of Patients With Valvular Disease was given the task of reviewing and compiling this information base and making recommendations for diagnostic testing, treatment, and physical activity. These guidelines follow the format established in previous American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines for classifying indications for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures: Class I: Conditions for which there is evidence and/or general agreement that a given procedure or treatment is useful and effective Class II: Conditions for which there is conflicting evidence and/or a divergence of opinion about the usefulness/efficacy of a procedure or treatment IIa. Weight of evidence/opinion is in favor of usefulness/efficacy IIb. Usefulness/efficacy is less well established by evidence/opinion. Class III: Conditions for which there is evidence and/or general agreement that the procedure/treatment is not useful and in some cases …

ACC/AHA Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction

The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association request that the following format be used when citing this document: Ryan TJ, Antman EM, Brooks NH, Califf RM, Hillis LD, Hiratzka LF, Rapaport E, Riegel B, Russell RO, Smith EE III, Weaver WD. ACC/AHA guidelines for the management of patients with acute myocardial infarction: 1999 update: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee on Management of Acute Myocardial Infarction). Available at http://www.acc.org/clinical/guidelines and http://www.americanheart.org. Accessed on [insert date].

ACC/AHA guidelines for coronary angiography: A report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee on Coronary Angiography) developed in collaboration with the Society for Cardiac Angiography and Interventions

Preamble…1757 I. Introduction…1758 II. General Considerations Regarding Coronary Angiography…1759 A. Definitions…1759 B. Purpose…1759 C. Morbidity and Mortality…1760 D. Relative Contraindications…1760 E. Utilization…1761 F. Costs…1763 G. Cost-Effectiveness…1764

Western Washington Randomized Trial of Intracoronary Streptokinase in Acute Myocardial Infarction

Two hundred fifty patients were enrolled in a multicenter, community-based study of the efficacy of intracoronary streptokinase thrombolysis in acute myocardial infarction; 134 were randomly assigned to streptokinase therapy and 116 were controls. All patients underwent left ventricular angiography and coronary arteriography before the random assignment. The mean time from the onset of symptoms to hospitalization was 134 +/- 144 minutes (S.D), and the mean time to random assignment was 276 +/- 185 minutes. Coronary reperfusion was achieved in 68 per cent of the streptokinase-treated group. The overall 30-day mortality was 18 (7.2 per cent); there were five deaths in the streptokinase-treated group (3.7 per cent) and 13 in the control group (11.2 per cent, P less than 0.02). Fifteen of the 18 deaths occurred in patients with anterior infarction. Intracoronary streptokinase therapy resulted in a nearly threefold reduction in the 30-day mortality after hospitalization for acute myocardial infarction.

ACC/AHA Guidelines for the Clinical Application of Echocardiography

### Preamble It is clearly important that the medical profession plays a significant role in critically evaluation of the use of diagnostic procedures and therapies in the management or prevention of disease. Rigorous and expert analysis of the available data documenting relative benefits and risks of those procedures and therapies can produce helpful guidelines that …

Guidelines for the Evaluation and Management of Heart Failure Report of the American College of Cardiology/ American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee on Evaluation and Management of Heart Failure)

It is becoming more apparent each day that despite a strong national commitment to excellence in health care, the resources and personnel are finite. It is, therefore, appropriate that the medical profession examine the impact of developing technology and new therapeutic modalities on the practice of cardiology. Such analysis, carefully conducted, could potentially have an impact on the cost of medical care without diminishing the effectiveness of that care. To this end, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association in 1980 established a Task Force on Assessment of Diagnostic and Therapeutic Cardiovascular Procedures (now the ACC/AHA Task Force on Practice Guidelines) with the following charge: The task force of the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association shall develop guidelines relative to the role of new therapeutic approaches and of specific noninvasive and invasive procedures in the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disease. The task force shall address, when appropriate, the contribution, uniqueness, sensitivity, specificity, indications, contraindications and cost-effectiveness of such diagnostic procedures and therapeutic modalities. The task force shall emphasize the role and values of the developed guidelines as an educational resource. The task force shall include a chair and eight members, four representatives from the American Heart Association and four representatives from the American College of Cardiology. The task force may select ad hoc members as needed upon the approval of the presidents of both organizations. Recommendations of the Task Force are forwarded to the President of each organization. The members of the task force are Melvin D. Cheitlin, MD, Kim A. Eagle, MD, Timothy J. Gardner, MD, Arthur Garson, Jr, MD, MPH, Raymond J. Gibbons, MD, Richard P. Lewis, MD, Robert A. O’Rourke, MD, Thomas J. Ryan, MD, and James L. Ritchie, MD, Chair. The Committee to Develop Guidelines on the Evaluation …

ACC/AHA/ACP-ASIM Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Chronic Stable Angina A Report of the American College of Cardiology/ American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines (Committee on Management of Patients With Chronic Stable Angina)

### Table of contents It is important that the medical profession play a significant role in critically evaluating the use of diagnostic procedures and therapies in the management or prevention of disease states. Rigorous and expert analysis of the available data documenting relative benefits and

Noninvasive assessment of coronary stenoses by myocardial imaging during pharmacologic coronary vasodilatation. III. Clinical trial

Thallium-201 myocardial imaging was performed at rest, after maximal treadmill exercise and during coronary vasodilatation induced by the intravenous administration of dipyridamole in 62 patients undergoing coronary angiography. Myocardial images after dipyridamole infusion were compared with rest and exercise thallium-201 images to determine the utility of pharmacologic stress for detecting coronary artery disease. Dipyridamole, 0.142 mg/min, was infused for 4 minutes with electrocardiographic and blood pressure monitoring, and thallium-201 was injected intravenously 4 minutes after infusion. Myocardial/background count ratios of 2.3 ± 0.5 (mean ± 1 standard deviation) after the administration of dipyridamole were higher than similar ratios for exercise images (2.1 ± 0.5; P < 0.001). The sensitivity of thallium-201 imaging for detecting significant coronary artery disease was equal for dipyridamole and exercise stress. In 51 patients with a 50 percent or greater stenosis of one or more coronary arteries, image defects were identified in 34 of 51 (67 percent) exercise and dipyridamole images. Twenty of 51 patients (39 percent) had abnormal rest images; in 17 of 20 patients, new or increased image defects were present after exercise and the infusion of dipyridamole. One of 11 patients (9 percent) with no stenosis of 50 percent or greater had a defect on exercise and dipyridamole images. Six of seven patients with new or enlarged image defects after the intravenous administration of dipyridamole also had new or enlarged defects after the oral administration of dipyridamole. After the infusion of dipyridamole, the heart rate increased from 64 ±10 beats/min supine to 88 ± 13 beats/min standing (P < 0.001), and blood pressure decreased from 129 ± 1680 ± 9 to 120 ± 1775 ± 9 mm Hg (P < 0.001). Angina and S-T depression occurred more frequently with exercise than with dipyridamole. S-T depression occurred in only two patients (3 percent) with dipyridamole, suggesting that diagnostic images were often obtained without significant ischemia. This study demonstrates that pharmacologic coronary vasodilatation is as effective as maximal treadmill exercise in creating myocardial perfusion abnormalities detectable with thallium-201 imaging in man.

ACC/AHA Clinical Performance Measures for Adults With ST-Elevation and Non-ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction. A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Performance Measures (Writing Committee to Develop Performance Measures on ST-Elevation and Non-ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction)

ACC/AHA TASK FORCE ON PERFORMANCE MEASURES Frederick A. Masoudi, MD, MSPH, FACC, Chair; Robert O. Bonow, MD, MACC, FAHA#; Elizabeth DeLong, PhD; N.A. Mark Estes III, MD, FACC, FAHA; David C. Goff, Jr, MD, PhD, FAHA, FACP; Kathleen Grady, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN; Lee A. Green, MD, MPH; Ann Loth, RN, MS, CNS; Eric D. Peterson, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA; Martha J. Radford, MD, FACC, FAHA; John S. Rumsfeld, MD, PhD, FACC, FAHA; David M. Shahian, MD, FACC

The Western Washington randomized trial of intracoronary streptokinase in acute myocardial infarction. A 12-month follow-up report

After cardiac catheterization and coronary arteriography, 134 patients who had had an acute myocardial infarction were randomly assigned to treatment with intracoronary streptokinase (4000 U per minute, begun approximately 4 1/2 hours after the onset of symptoms, for a total of 286,000 +/- 77,800 U over 72 +/- 24 minutes); 116 control patients received standard care after they returned to the coronary care unit, immediately after angiography. Preliminary results of this trial have been published in the Journal (1983; 309:1477-81). During the first 30 days, 5 deaths occurred in the streptokinase group and 13 occurred in the control group (3.7 vs 11.2 per cent, P = 0.02); during the first year, the corresponding figures were 11 and 17 deaths (8.2 vs. 14.7 per cent, P = 0.10). However, when a minor imbalance in the ejection fraction and infarct location between the two groups was adjusted by logistic regression, the difference in one-year mortality became significant (P = 0.03). In the streptokinase group, 2 of the 80 patients in whom perfusion was reestablished (2.5 per cent) had died by one year, whereas 3 of the 13 with partial reperfusion (23.1 per cent) and 6 of the 41 with no reperfusion (14.6 per cent) had died (P = 0.008). Mortality among patients with partial reperfusion was not significantly different from that among those without reperfusion (P greater than 0.90). No base-line clinical, angiographic, or hemodynamic variable was predictive of successful reperfusion, according to univariate and multivariate analyses. We conclude that intracoronary streptokinase reduces one-year mortality among patients with acute myocardial infarction, but this improvement occurs only among those in whom thrombolysis results in coronary artery reperfusion.