SCAI Door to Lactate Clearance (SCAI DLC) Cardiogenic Shock Initiative: Definition, Hypothesis, and Call to Action

The field of cardiogenic shock (CS) has advanced rapidly in recent years, in part due to the creation and widespread adoption of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) SHOCK Classification in 2019, subsequently refined in 2022.1,2 As investigators adopted the classification and expanded research into the field, some themes have emerged. First, diagnosing and staging CS has become the cornerstone of management, inclusive of using the SCAI SHOCK stage trajectory. Second, CS teams are vital to the consistency of management, providing both experience and expertise, as well as checks and balances on individual patients and system-based care.