Loading...
Electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) generally focuses on detection of marked arrhythmia rather than ST-segment deviations that suggest transient ischemia. However, in this substudy of an industry-sponsored randomized trial of the antianginal drug ranolazine for ACS (JW Gen Med Apr 26 2007), the influence of transient ischemic episodes on outcome was analyzed.
During continuous ECG monitoring of 6355 patients in the 7 days after randomization, 20% exhibited one or more transient ischemic episodes. Patients with transient ischemic episodes were at significantly elevated risk for cardiovascular death (7.7% vs. 2.7%), myocardial infarction (9.4% vs. 5.0%), and recurrent ischemia (17.5% vs. 12.3%)…