Cost-effectiveness of remote ischaemic conditioning as an adjunct to primary percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction.

Aims:Remote ischaemic conditioning seems to improve long-term clinical outcomes in patients undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention. Remote ischaemic conditioning can be applied with cycles of alternating inflation and deflation of a blood-pressure cuff. We evaluated the cost-effectiveness of remote ischaemic conditioning as an adjunct to primary percutaneous coronary intervention in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction from the perspective of the Danish healthcare system.Methods and results:Between February 2007 and November 2008, 251 patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction were randomly assigned to remote ischaemic conditioning as an adjunct to primary percutaneous coronary intervention (n=126) or to primary percutaneous coronary intervention alone (n=125). During a 4-year follow-up period, we used data from Danish medical registries and medical records to estimate within-trial cardiovascular medical care costs and major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular event-free s...