UCLA

Background

With conflicting evidence regarding the usefulness of intraaortic balloon pump (IABP), reports of IABP use in the United States have been inconsistent. Our objective was to examine trends in IABP usage in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in the United States and to evaluate the association of IABP use with mortality.

Methods

This is a retrospective, observational study using patient data obtained from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database from 1998 to 2008. Patients undergoing any PCI (1,552,602 procedures) for a primary diagnosis of symptomatic coronary artery disease and acute coronary syndrome, including non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction and ST-elevation myocardial infarction, were evaluated.

Results

The overall use of IABP significantly decreased during the study period from 0.99% in 1998 to 0.36% in 2008 (univariate and multivariate P for trend < .0001). Patients who received IABP had substantially higher rates of shock compared with those who did not receive IABP (38.09% vs 0.70%; P < .0001), which was associated with markedly higher inhospital mortality rates (20.31% vs 0.72%; P < .0001). However, IABP use significantly decreased in patients with shock (36.5%-13.4%) and acute myocardial infarction (2.23%-0.84%) (univariate and multivariate P for trend for both < .0001). A temporal reduction in all-cause PCI-associated mortality from 1.1% in 1998 to 0.86% in 2008 (univariate and multivariate P for trend < .0001) was also observed.

Conclusions

The utilization of IABP associated with PCI significantly decreased between 1998 and 2008 in the United States, even among patients with acute myocardial infarction and shock.