El Paso was one of 13 communities nationwide that participated in an innovative national study supported by the NIH National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute involving a glucose-insulin-potassium, “GIK”, solution for patients experiencing symptoms such as chest pains. 

    According to a study appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers found that the intravenous medication of patients with GIK within the first hour did not prevent the heart attack from happening; however, other promising outcomes did result. The size of the heart attack was smaller and there were fewer cardiac arrests or deaths when the patients received the GIK solution versus the placebo.

THE STUDY

    Compared to 10 percent of the heart muscle being lost to heart attack in the placebo group, in those receiving GIK, only 2 percent was lost.  Also, compared to 9 percent of patients with placebo having cardiac arrest or dying, in the GIK group 4 percent had cardiac arrest or died, a reduction of more than 50 percent.  For the group of patients who presented with “ST-elevation heart attacks,” those who need immediate intervention, the placebo group had heart attacks that consume 12 percent of the heart muscle, versus 3 percent in those who got GIK.  And in this group, cardiac arrest or mortality occurred in 14 percent among those receiving placebo, versus 4 percent in those getting GIK.  The GIK treatment was administered in the ambulance and continued during the hospitalization for 12 hours. The cost of the treatment is only about $50.

   The findings of the study were presented at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting in Chicago Mar. 27 and were simultaneously published online in JAMA. This national study was led by Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, under the direction of Harry P. Selker, MD, principal investigator and executive director of the Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts Medical Center, and Joni Beshansky, RN, MPH, co-principal investigator and project director. 

LOCAL PARTICIPATION

    Under the local direction of Robert Woolard, MD, (pictured) of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), Department of Emergency Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, with involvement of local hospitals, the El Paso Fire Department and local paramedics, people who called 911 with symptoms of a heart attack from 2008 through July 2011 were evaluated for enrollment in the study. This study is the first National Institutes of Health-sponsored, large-scale clinical trial conducted in El Paso.

    The research was brought to the community as part of the mission of the TTUHSC Paul L. Foster School of Medicine working in collaboration with community hospitals, the city, fire department and the paramedics to improve the health of the people of El Paso. 

    “During the study most El Paso patients with heart attacks who called 911 agreed to be studied and could be enrolled because six El Paso hospitals (University Medical Center, Providence, Sierra, Las Palmas, Del Sol and Providence-Sierra East) agreed to participate in the trial,” said Dr. Woolard. “The study treatment was started in the ambulance and continued for 12 hours in the hospital.”

    The study included El Paso Fire Department and 35 other EMS agencies around the country that together enrolled 911 patients. Prior to the study, 200 residents were polled in El Paso and each of the 13 participating communities across the nation and agreed that participation in the study was positive for their community.