Acute myocardial infarction and cardiogenic shock

Background The IABP SHOCK trial was designed as a morbidity-based randomized controlled trial to determine the effect of intraaortic balloon pulsation (IABP) in patients with infarct-related cardiogenic shock (CS). The primary endpoint was the change in the APACHE II score over a 4-day period. The prospective hypothesis was that adding IABP therapy to “standard care” would reduce CS-triggered multiorgan dysfunction syndrome (MODS). The primary endpoint showed no difference between conventionally managed cardiogenic shock patients and those with additional IABP support. In an inflammatory marker substudy, we analyzed the prognostic value of the cytokines interferon-γ (INF-γ), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), macrophage inflammatory protein-1β (MIP-1β), granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF), and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1β (MCP-1β). We also investigated the influence of IABP support, age, and gender on cytokine levels.