Evidence-based Management Of The Acute Coronary Syndrome

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is at present the most common clinical entity requiring admission of a patient to an inpatient cardiology service. In the past, evaluation and treatment options for patients with this syndrome were either empirical or based on observational reports of clinical outcomes. It is now generally agreed that to acquire meaningful clinical data, a randomized clinical trial is the best method of clinical research. Over the past few years an ever-increasing number of randomized clinical tests have resulted in a much deeper evidence-based understanding of the pathophysiology, presentation, risk assessment, and management of the acute coronary syndrome and its subsets, i.e., unstable angina, non-Q wave myocardial infarction, and ST elevation/Q-wave infarction. This book organizes the data gleaned from these trials to allow the reader to better understand the best use of individual forms of evaluation and treatment, and how these individual treatments can be best combined to result in optimal patient outcome.