An NYU Langone cardiologist led nationwide efforts to update guidelines on treating acute coronary syndrome and reducing the risk of heart attacks in patients. The guidelines, which recommend that doctors use modern technologies and treatments in line with NYU’s practices, had not been updated since 2013.
The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association published the guidelines on ACS — a condition characterized by restricted blood flow to the heart — in a February report. Sunil Rao, the director of interventional cardiology at NYU Langone Health, chaired a committee tasked with writing the guidelines. Nearly 1.2 million people in the United States are hospitalized with ACS symptoms each year, which often include heart attacks and chest pains.
The most recent guidelines outlined over 40 therapies and strategies, emphasizing efforts to prevent severe blood clots and bolster secondary prevention tactics during recovery. The treatments included improving intravascular imaging techniques and using a microaxial flow pump to help the heart circulate blood throughout the body. The guidelines also suggested that health care providers adopt outpatient rehab practices that aim to minimize the recurrence of heart attacks and increase survival rates in patients.
“There is really good data showing an association between adherence to guideline-based care, improved survival and better quality of life in patients with acute coronary syndrome,” Rao said in an interview with WSN. “The good news about NYU Langone Health is that we’re already using a lot of these evidence-based therapies.”
Rao said that a variety of cardiologists, pharmacists, physicians and an ACS patient collaborated to write the guidelines, which have also been endorsed by organizations like the National Association of EMS Physicians and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions. The February report also highlighted scope for future research on areas like the ideal duration of telemetry to monitor patients’ heart rhythms and the timeline of patients’ coronary syndrome transition from acute to chronic.
The team who authored the guidelines are planning to update them periodically to ensure that they continuously reflect the latest cardiology research, according to Rao. He said that the researchers will likely release a new set of ACS treatment recommendations in a few years.
“The field moves really, really rapidly,” Rao said. “We just have to continue to pay attention to the trials that are being published and the research that’s going on. As these guidelines get updated, we at NYU will continue to implement those for the patients that we take care of.”
Contact Vaishnavi Girish at [email protected].
