Long-term benefit of early pre-reperfusion metoprolol administration in patients with acute myocardial infarction: Results from the Metocard-CNIC trial (Effect of Metoprolol in Cardioprotection during an Acute Myocardial Infarction)

The goal of this trial was to study the long-term effects of intravenous (IV) metoprolol administration before reperfusion on left ventricular (LV) function and clinical events. Early IV metoprolol during ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) has been shown to reduce infarct size when used in conjunction with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (pPCI). The METOCARD-CNIC (Effect of Metoprolol in Cardioprotection During an Acute Myocardial Infarction) trial recruited 270 patients with Killip class ≤II anterior STEMI presenting early after symptom onset (<6 h) and randomized them to pre-reperfusion IV metoprolol or control group. Long-term magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on 202 patients (101 per group) 6 months after STEMI. Patients had a minimal 12-month clinical follow-up. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) at the 6 months MRI was higher after IV metoprolol (48.7 ± 9.9% vs. 45.0 ± 11.7% in control subjects; adjusted treatment effect 3.49%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.44% to 6.55%; p = 0.025). The occurrence of severely depressed LVEF (≤35%) at 6 months was significantly lower in patients treated with IV metoprolol (11% vs. 27%, p = 0.006). The proportion of patients fulfilling Class I indications for an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) was significantly lower in the IV metoprolol group (7% vs. 20%, p = 0.012). At a median follow-up of 2 years, occurrence of the pre-specified composite of death, heart failure admission, reinfarction, and malignant arrhythmias was 10.8% in the IV metoprolol group versus 18.3% in the control group, adjusted hazard ratio (HR): 0.55; 95% CI: 0.26 to 1.04; p = 0.065. Heart failure admission was significantly lower in the IV metoprolol group (HR: 0.32; 95% CI: 0.015 to 0.95; p = 0.046). In patients with anterior Killip class ≤II STEMI undergoing pPCI, early IV metoprolol before reperfusion resulted in higher long-term LVEF, reduced incidence of severe LV systolic dysfunction and ICD indications, and fewer heart failure admissions.

Assessment of interstitial lung disease in Sjögren’s syndrome by lung ultrasound: a pilot study of correlation with high-resolution chest tomography

The background of this study is to assess the accuracy of lung ultrasound (LUS) to diagnose interstitial lung disease (ILD) in Sjögren’s syndrome (Sjs), in patients who have any alterations in pulmonary function tests (PFT) or respiratory symptoms. LUS was correlated with chest tomography (hrCT), considering it as the imaging gold standard technique to diagnose ILD. This is a pilot, multicenter, cross-sectional, and consecutive-case study. The inclusion criteria are ≥18 years old, Signs and symptoms: according to ACEG 2002 criteria, respiratory symptoms (dyspnea, cough), or any alterations in PFR. LUS was done following the International Consensus Conference on Lung Ultrasound protocol for interstitial syndrome (B pattern). Of the 50 patients in follow-up, 13 (26%) met the inclusion criteria. All were women with age 63.62 years (range 39–88). 78.6% of the cases had primary Sjs (SLE, RA, n = 2). The intra-rater reliability k is 1, according to Gwet’s Ac1 and GI index (probability to concordance—e(K)—, by Cohen, of 0.52). LUS has a sensitivity of 1 (95% CI 0.398–1.0), specificity of 0.89 (95% CI 0.518–0.997), and a positive probability reason of 9.00 (95% CI 7.1–11.3) to detect ILD. The correlation of Pearson is r = 0.84 (p < 0.001). To check the accuracy of LUS to diagnose ILD, a completely bilateral criterion of yes/no for interstitial pattern was chosen, AUC reaches significance, 0.94 (0.07) (95% CI 0.81–1.0, p = 0.014). LUS reaches an excellent correlation to hrCT in Sjs affected with ILD, and might be a useful technique in daily clinical practice for the assessment of pulmonary disease in the sicca syndrome. © 2016 SIMI