The Difficult Evolution of Intensive Cardiac Care Units: An Overview of the BLITZ-3 Registry and Other Italian Surveys

Table 3

Effects of STEMI network implementation on ICCUs activities. Data from the Italian Emilia-Romagna ICCUs Network. Modified from Pavesi et al. [10].

STEMI	ICCU with interventional capabilities (Hub)			ICCU without interventional capabilities (Spoke)
	2002	2007		2002	2007
Patients, number	2450	2873	<0.0001	1756	756	<0.0001
Male gender, %	66.8	68.5	0.44	67.4	63.5	0.003
Age (median), yrs (IQR)	70 (59–79)	68 (58–78)	0.07	71 (59–79)	73 (61–82)	0.0002
>2 comorbidities, %	12.6	11.7	0.02	13	20.5	<0.0001
PCI < 24 h, %	24.1	76.5	<0.0001	6.1	35.1	<0.0001
In-hospital crude mortality, %	14.2	11.3	0.0002	11.9	10.4	0.87
One-year crude mortality, %	22.2	18.3	<0.0001	20.1	20.5	0.08

IQR: interquartile range; ICCU: Intensive Cardiac Care Unit; PCI: percutaneous coronary intervention.