Cardiology

Condition or Disorder	Intervention vs. Control	Outcome	Follow-up Duration	Event Rates %		NNT (95% CI)
				CER	EER
Acute myocardial infarction1	Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors vs. placebo	Mortality	30 days	7.6	7.1	210 (125 to 662)
Acute myocardial infarction2	Angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors vs. placebo	Nonfatal heart failure	30 days	15.2	14.6	165 (111 to 488)
Cardiology Chronic heart failure (CHF)3	b-blockers vs. placebo	Hospitalisation for CHF	7 months	17	13	24 (16 to 51)
Cardiology Chronic heart failure (CHF)4	b-blockers vs. placebo	All-cause mortality	7 months	12	9	40 (24 to 149)
Congestive heart failure5	Spironolactone vs. placebo	Mortality	24 months	46	35	9 (7 to 16)
Non-Q-wave coronary events (unstable angina or non-Q-wave MI)6	Enoxaparin vs. unfractionated heparin	Composite end point of death, MI or recurrent angina	14 days	19.7	16.6	31 (17 to 191)
Coronary events in healthy persons with low HDL cholesterol levels7	Lovastatin vs. placebo	First acute major coronary events and adverse events	5.2 years	6	4	50 (33 to 97)
Cardiovascular events in treated hypertension8	Aspirin vs. placebo	Major cardiovascular events	3.8 years	3.9	3.4	176 (90 to 3115)
		Myocardial infarction (MI)		1.4	0.9	208 (127 to 551)
Myocardial infarction and average cholesterol levels in older patients9	Pravastatin vs. placebo	Major coronary events	5 years	28.1	19.7	11 (8 to 24)
		Stroke		7.3	4.5	34 (22 to 333)
		Death from coronary artery disease		10.3	5.8	22 (15 to 53)
		Coronary artery bypass grafting		11.0	6.6	21 (15 to 56)
Chronic heart failure (CHF)10	Exercise vs. no exercise	Death	3.4 years	40.8	18	5 (3 to 21)
		All cardiac events		75.5	34	3 (2 to 5)
		Hospitalization for CHF		28.6	10	6 (3 to 32)
Severe vasovagal syncope; patients with ≥6 syncopal episodes and a positive tilt-table test result with syncope or presyncope and relative bradycardia11	Pacemaker vs. usual care	First recurrence of syncope	2 years	70.4	22.2	3 (1 to 5)
Congestive heart failure12	Home-based intervention vs. usual care	Proportion of patients with the combined end point of unplanned readmission or out-of-hospital death	18 months	81.3	67.3	Not significant
		Out-of-hospital death		18.8	4.1	7 (3 to 44)
Coronary Heart Disease13	Patients invited to attend nurse led secondary prevention clinics vs. Patients who received regular care	Presence, frequency and course of chest pain	12 months	11	7	24 (16 to 170)
		Hospital admissions		28	20	13 (9 to 35)
Adults at high risk for cardiovascular events14	Ramipril vs. placebo	Myocardial Infarction, stroke and cardiovascular mortality	4 years	18	14	26 (19 to 43)
Patients surviving Myocardial Infarction who had contraindications to b-blockers15	Amiodarone vs. placebo	Cardiac mortality	1 year	11	6	23 (12 to 1323)
		Arrhythmias		19	8	9 (6 to 16)
Recent-onset atrial fibrillation in patients with or without heart disease16	Oral propafenone vs. placebo	Rates of conversion to sinus rhythm at 3 and 8 hours	8 hours	3 hrs: 18	3 hrs: 24	3 hrs: 4 (3 to 6)
				8 hrs: 37	8 hrs: 76	8 hrs: 3 (2 to 4)
Patients resuscitated from ventricular arrhythmias; use of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICD) in reducing mortality17	ICD vs. antiarrhythmic drug therapy	All-cause mortality	18 months	24	16	13 (8 to 30)
Myocardial infarction with cardiogenic shock18	Immediate revascularization (angioplasty or bypass surgery to be done as soon as possible and within 6 hours of randomization) vs. medical stabilization (intraaortic balloon counterpulsation and thrombolytic therapy with delayed revascularization – minimum 54 hours after randomization)	All-cause mortality	6 months	63	50	8 (5 to 66)
Coronary artery disease (CAD) and low levels of high density lipoprotein cholesterol19	Gemfibrozil vs. placebo	Nonfatal myocardial infarction or CAD death	5 years	21.7	17.3	23 (13 to 74)
		Stroke		6.9	5.1	56 (27 to 725)
Acute myocardial infraction (MI)20	Aspirin and heparin plus angioplasty vs. aspirin and heparin plus streptokinase (control)	All-cause mortality	5 years	24	13	10 (6 to 35)
		Cardiac mortality		20	7	8 (5 to 15)
		Death and nonfatal MI		22	6	6 (4 to 11)
Unstable coronary artery disease21	Dalteparin vs. placebo	Death, MI or both at 1 month	6 months	5.8	3.1	37 (23 to 102)
		Death, MI or need for revascularization at 3 months		33	29	27 (13 to 208)
Unstable coronary artery disease22	Invasive strategy vs. noninvasive strategy	Death, MI or both	6 months	12	9	37 (20 to 398)
Medically refractory angina23	Transmyocardial revascularization (TMR – consisted of a limited muscle-sparingleft thoracotomy and the creation of transmyocardial laser channels) and continued medication vs. continued medication alone	Reduction of ≥ 2 angina cases	12 months	11	61	2 (2 to 3)
Congestive heart failure (CHF)24	Usual CHF medicine plus low dose of lisinopril (2.5 or 5.0 mg/d-control) vs. usual CHF medicine plus high dose of lisinopril (30 mg/d)	Mortality plus hospitalization	3 years	83.8	79.7	26 (16 to 82)
		Mortality plus cardiovascular (CV) hospitalization		74.1	71.1	34 (17 to 264)
		Mortality Plus CHF hospitalization		60.4	55.1	17 (12 to 37)
		CV mortality plus CV hospitalization		72.7	69.4	30 (16 to 281)
Recent-onset atrial fibrillation25	Oral amiodarone vs. placebo	Rates of conversion to sinus rhythm (verified by Holter monitoring)	24 hours	35	87	2 (1 to 4)
Chronic heart failure26	Metroprolol vs. placebo	All-cause death or hospital admission	1 year	38	32	17 (12 to 32)
		Hospitalization for worsening heart failure		15	10	22 (15 to 39)
Atrial fibrillation (AF)27	Amiodarone (10 mg/kg of body weight) vs. sotalol or propafenone (control)	Time to first recurrence of AF confirmed on ECG	468 days	63	35	4 (3 to 6)
Balloon angioplasty28	Routine stent implantation vs. optimal balloon angioplasty with provisional stent	Composite end point	6 months	14.9	6.1	11 (7 to 30)
		Target vessel Revascularization or surgery		10.1	3.9	16 (9 to 62)
		Revascularization or surgery		12.9	5.2	13 (8 to 309)
Unstable coronary artery disease29	Invasive strategy (immediate angioplasty and revascularization) vs. non-invasive strategy	Death or myocardial infraction (MI)	1 year	14	10	27 (16 to 92)
		Death		3.9	2.2	60 (32 to 306)
		Readmission		57	37	5 (4 to 6)
		Cardiac intervention after discharge		31	8	5 (4 to 5)
Acute myocardial infarction30	Coronary stenting plus abciximab vs. intravenous alteplase (control)	Composite of death, reinfarction or stroke	6 months	23	9	7 (5 to 36)
Angina and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty31	Coumarin and aspirin vs. aspirin alone	Composite end point of death, myocardial infarction, target-lesion revascularization and stoke at 30 days	1 year	6.4	3.4	33 (17 to 222)
		Composite at 1 year		20	14	17 (10 to 73)
Atrial fibrillation (AF)32	Amiodarone vs. placebo	Rates and time to AF or intolerable adverse effects	22 months	88	48	3 (2 to 4)
	Sotalol vs. placebo	Rates and time to AF or intolerable adverse effects		88	77	Not significant
Patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) receiving long-term hemodialysis33	Vitamin E vs. placebo	CDV events	512 days	34	19	6 (4 to 29)
		Myocardial infraction		18	8	10 (5 to 230)
CAD and hypertension34	Acarbose vs placebo	Major CV events	3.3 years	4.7	2.2	44 (30 to 436)
Myocardial infaraction35	Warfarin + aspirin, warfarin vs aspirin	Composite outcomes	1445 days		15% vs 20%, 17% vs 20%	20 (12 to 51), 30 (16 to 483)
Atrial fibrillation36	Anterior-posterior versus anterior-lateral electrode position	Successful cardioversion	24 hours	78	96	6 (4 to 19)
chronic heart failure37	Candesartan 4 or 8 mg vs placebo	All-cause mortality	37.7 months	25	23	46 (26 to 463)
acute myocardial infarction38	Coronary angioplasty vs fibrinolytic therapy	Composite endpoint	30 day	13.7	8.0	18 (12 to 38)
CAD39	Perindopril vs placebo	Large MI or death	4.2 years	9.9	8.0	54 (35 to 115)

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