Coronary angiography in patients without ST-segment elevation following out-of- hospital cardiac arrest. COUPE clinical trial

Introduction and objectives: The role of emergency coronary angiography (CAG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) following out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) in patients without ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) remains unclear. We aimed to assess whether emergency CAG and PCI would improve survival with good neurological outcome in this population.Methods: In this multicenter, randomized, open-label, investigator-initiated clinical trial, we randomly assigned 69 survivors of OHCA without STEMI to undergo immediate CAG or deferred CAG. The primary efficacy endpoint was a composite of in-hospital survival free of severe dependence. The safety endpoint was a composite of major adverse cardiac events including death, reinfarction, bleeding, and ventricular arrhythmias.Results: A total of 66 patients were included in the primary analysis (95.7%). In-hospital survival was 62.5% in the immediate CAG group and 58.8% in the delayed CAG group (HR, 0.96; 95%CI, 0.45-2.09; P = .93). In-hospital survival free of severe dependence was 59.4% in the immediate CAG group and 52.9% in the delayed CAG group (HR, 1.29; 95%CI, 0.60-2.73; P = .4986). No differences were found in the secondary endpoints except for the incidence of acute kidney failure, which was more frequent in the immediate CAG group (15.6% vs 0%, P = .002) and infections, which were higher in the delayed CAG group (46.9% vs 73.5%, P = .003).Conclusions: In this underpowered randomized trial involving patients resuscitated after OHCA without STEMI, immediate CAG provided no benefit in terms of survival without neurological impairment compared with delayed CAG.ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02641626 C 2022 Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. on behalf of Sociedad Espanola de Cardiologia.