Complications during hospitalization and at 30 days in the intensive cardiac care unit for patients with ST-elevation versus non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndrome

BACKGROUND: In this meta-analysis, we aimed to systematically compare the complications during hospitalization and at 30 days respectively, in intensive cardiac care unit (ICCU) for patients with ST elevation (STE) vs non-STE acute coronary syndrome (NSTE ACS). METHODS: Electronic search databases including http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov, EMBASE, Cochrane Central, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and MEDLINE were searched for publications comparing complications observed in STE ACS vs NSTE ACS patients admitted in ICCU, intensive care unit (ICU) or coronary care unit (CCU). This is a meta-analysis and risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to illustrate the data following analysis by the RevMan 5.3 software. RESULTS: Six studies consisting of a total number of 25,604 participants (12,880 participants admitted due to STE ACS and 12,724 participants admitted due to NSTE ACS) were included. Our results showed that the total outcomes including severely abnormal electrocardiography (ECG) (RR: 1.48, 95% CI: 1.27-1.73; P = .00001) and mortality (RR: 1.83, 95% CI: 1.64-2.04; P = .00001) were significantly higher in patients with STE ACS. Re-infarction (RR: 0.86, 95% CI: 0.62-1.19; P = .37) and heart failure (RR: 1.04, 95% CI: 0.88-1.23; P = .62) were similarly manifested in those patients with ACS. However, the risk for recurrent angina was significantly higher with NSTE ACS (RR: 0.65, 95% CI: 0.46-0.92; P = .01). CONCLUSIONS: Patients with STE ACS were at a higher risk for in-hospital and 30 days mortality in this analysis. In hospital, severely abnormal ECG was also significantly higher in this category of patients compared to NSTE ACS. However, re-admission for heart failure and re-infarction was similar in both groups. Future studies should be able to confirm this hypothesis.