IMR Press / RCM / Volume 23 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.31083/j.rcm2303104
Open Access Original Research
Endovascular therapeutic hypothermia adjunctive to percutaneous coronary intervention in acute myocardial infarction: realistic simulation as a game changer
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1 Department of Cardiology, InCor - Heart Institute, School of Medicine, University of Sao Paulo, 05403-900 Sao Paulo, Brazil
2 Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA
3 Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
*Correspondence: luisdallan@yahoo.com (Luis Augusto Palma Dallan)
Academic Editors: George Dangas and Christian Hengstenberg
Rev. Cardiovasc. Med. 2022, 23(3), 104; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.rcm2303104
Submitted: 27 November 2021 | Revised: 29 December 2021 | Accepted: 10 January 2022 | Published: 16 March 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Percutaneous Coronary Intervention)
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: Endovascular therapeutic hypothermia (ETH) reduces the damage by ischemia/reperfusion cell syndrome in cardiac arrest and has been studied as an adjuvant therapy to percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). New available advanced technology allows cooling much faster, but there is paucity of resources for training to avoid delays in door-to-balloon time (DTB) due to ETH and subsequently coronary reperfusion, which would derail the procedure. The aim of the study was to describe the process for the development of a simulation, training & educational protocol for the multidisciplinary team to perform optimized ETH as an adjunctive therapy for STEMI. Methods and results: We developed an optimized simulation protocol using modern mannequins in different realistic scenarios for the treatment of patients undergoing ETH adjunctive to PCI for STEMIs starting from the emergency room, through the CathLab, and to the intensive care unit (ICU) using the Proteus® Endovascular System (Zoll Circulation Inc™, San Jose, CA, USA). The primary endpoint was door-to-balloon (DTB) time. We successfully trained 361 multidisciplinary professionals in realistic simulation using modern mannequins and sham situations in divisions of the hospital where real patients would be treated. The focus of simulation and training was logistical optimization and educational debriefing with strategies to reduce waste of time in patient’s transportation from different departments, and avoiding excessive rewarming during transfer. Afterwards, the EHT protocol was successfully validated in a trial randomizing 50 patients for 18 minutes cooling before coronary recanalization at the target temperature of 32 ± 1.0 C or PCI-only. A total of 35 patients underwent ETH (85.7% [30/35] in 90 ± 15 minutes), without delays in the mean door-to-balloon time for primary PCI when compared to 15 control group patients (92.1 minutes versus 87 minutes, respectively; p = 0.509). Conclusions: Realistic simulation, intensive training and educational debriefing for the multidisciplinary team propitiated feasible endovascular therapeutic hypothermia as an adjuvant therapy to primary PCI in STEMI. ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02664194.

Keywords
Therapeutic hypothermia
ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI)
Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)
Acute coronary syndrome (ACS)
Coronary disease
Simulation
Training
Educational debriefing
Figures
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