Prognostic Value of Prothrombin Time in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention

Abstract

Introduction: There are some studies regarding the prognostic value of coagulation abnormalities both in heart failure and acute pulmonary embolism patients. However, it is unclear whether prothrombin time (PT) at presentation will be associated with long-term mortality in acute coronary syndrome (ACS) patients not on anticoagulant therapy. Thus, we investigated the prognostic role of initial PT in such patients. Patients and Methods: A total of 1100 consecutive patients with ACS undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) who were not receiving anticoagulant therapy were included in the study, retrospectively. PT was measured on admission in these patients before anticoagulation therapy. The study population was divided into three groups based on the PT values: A high-PT group (PT ≥ 14 sec, n= 50), intermediate-PT group (12.5 < PT < 14 sec, n= 169), and low-PT group (PT ≤ 12.5 sec, n= 881). The primary end point was all-cause death during the median follow-up of 30.5 months. Results: The rate of the primary end point was 15% in the low-PT group, 27% in the intermediate-PT group, and 52% in the high-PT group (p< 0.001). For long-term mortality, a significantly higher mortality risk was observed in high-PT group (HR: 2.648, 95% CI: 1.590-4.410, p< 0.001) compared with the others group in multivariate analysis. The addition of PT to a multivariable model that included the left ventricular ejection fraction, histories of diabetes mellitus and stroke, age, hemoglobin, creatinine, white blood cell count, total bilirubin levels and Killip class led to a significant net reclassification improvement (NRI) of 26.7% (p< 0.001) and an integrated discrimination improvement of 0.022 (p= 0.001). Conclusion: Our findings suggest that prolonged initial PT in the absence of anticoagulant therapy can be associated with all-cause mortality in ACS patients who were undergoing PCI. In addition, PT may be used to identify the high-risk patients with ACS.