Performance of Primary Angioplasty for STEMI during the COVID-19 Outbreak

There has been concern whether the declining cases of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak associate with primary angioplasty performance We assessed the performance of primary angioplasty in a tertiary care hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia, by comparing the door-to-device (DTD) time and thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) flow after angioplasty between two periods of admission: during the outbreak of COVID-19 (March 1 to May 31, 2020) and before the outbreak (March 1, to May 31, 2019) Overall, there was a relative reduction of 44% for STEMI admission during the outbreak (n = 116) compared with before the outbreak (N = 208) Compared with before the outbreak period (n = 141), STEMI patients who admitted during the outbreak and received primary angioplasty (n = 70) had similar median symptom onset-to-angioplasty center admission (360 minutes for each group), similar to radial access uptake (90 vs 89 4%, p = 0 88) and left anterior descending infarct-related artery (54 3 vs 58 9%, p = 0 52) The median DTD time and total ischemia time were longer (104 vs 81 minutes, p < 0 001, and 475 5 vs 449 minutes, p = 0 43, respectively) However, the final achievement of TIMI 3 flow was similar (87 1 vs 87 2%), and so was the in-hospital mortality (5 7 vs 7 8%) During the COVID-19 outbreak, we found a longer DTD time for primary angioplasty, but the achievement of final TIMI 3 flow and in-hospital mortality were similar as compared with before the outbreak Thus, primary angioplasty should remain the standard of care for STEMI during the COVID-19 outbreak © 2021 Cambridge University Press All rights reserved