This multinational perspective outlines key research priorities, current challenges, and essential elements for advancing high-quality evidence generation in critical care cardiology.
Over the last several decades, the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) has seen a substantial evolution in the patient population, comorbidities, and diagnoses. However, generation of high-quality evidence to manage these complex and critically ill patients has been slow. Given the scarcity of clinical trials focused on critical care cardiology (CCC), CICU clinicians are often left to extrapolate from studies conducted which either exclude or poorly represented the patient population admitted to CICUs. The lack of high-quality evidence and limited guidance from society guidelines has led to significant variation in practice patterns for many of the most common CICU diagnoses. Several barriers, both common to critical care research and unique to CCC, have impeded progress. In this multinational perspective, we describe key areas of priority for CCC research, current challenges for investigation in the CICU, and essential elements of a path forward for the field.
“These include regional variability in practice patterns, lack of robust clinical evidence and insufficient societal guidelines directing patient care. These issues are inherent to the heterogenous, high-acuity and complex patient population seen in cardiac intensive care units.”
Miller et al. (Fri,) conducted a review in Critical care cardiology. This multinational perspective outlines key research priorities, current challenges, and essential elements for advancing high-quality evidence generation in critical care cardiology.