Preprocedural fasting for coronary interventions: is it time to change practice?

Dear Editor, Patients undergoing invasive cardiac procedures are routinely fasted for varying periods of time even though there is no clearly applicable evidence base to support current practices. We read with great interest the study by Hamid et al 1 exploring the occurrence of emergency endotracheal intubation and peri-procedural aspiration pneumonia following elective and planned inpatient percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in their practice. This is the first published study in the peer-reviewed literature that specifically addresses the issue of fasting prior to any cardiac procedure. Considering that it involved retrospective analysis of existing data, the wider applicability of the results may be limited, but their paper would crucially serve to raise awareness …