FRIDAY, Feb. 17 (HealthDay News) -- A high serum uric acid level is an independent predictor of in-hospital and long-term adverse cardiac events in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), according to research published in the Feb. 15 issue of The American Journal of Cardiology.
Mehmet G. Kaya, M.D., of the Erciyes University School of Medicine in Istanbul, and colleagues conducted a large retrospective study of 2,249 consecutive patients with STEMI who had undergone primary PCI. The authors sought to evaluate whether serum uric acid levels were associated with long-term outcomes in this patient population. Patients were grouped according to high or low uric acid levels.
The researchers found that the average serum uric acid levels were 8.0 ± 1.5 mg/dL in the high uric acid group and 5.2 ± 1.0 mg/dL in the low uric acid group. Patients were followed for an average of 24.3 months. Patients with high uric acid levels had a statistically significant in-hospital mortality rate of 9 percent, compared with 2 percent for patients with low levels of uric acid. Those with high uric acid levels were twice as likely to experience a major adverse cardiac event in the hospital and 1.6-fold more likely to experience one during long-term follow-up.
"The present multicenter large study of 2,249 patients demonstrates that elevated uric acid levels on admission are independently associated with impaired coronary flow after primary PCI and both short-term and long-term outcomes in patients who undergo primary PCI for the management of STEMI," the authors write.
Abstract
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