Shorter hospital stays for angioplasty patients who receive abciximab

The purpose of this retrospective study is to examine the effect of abciximab treatment on hospital length of stay for patients undergoing angioplasty in a naturalistic setting. Multivariate analysis was used to control for a wide range of factors (patient demographics, insurance provider, health conditions, admission and discharge information, and hospital characteristics) that may influence length of stay. Estimation was conducted on a sample of 13,384 angioplasty patients via a two-stage sample selection model. In addition, the model was re-estimated for a subgroup of 4,800 patients who underwent angioplasty and were also diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction. The study finds that patients in poorer health were more likely to receive abciximab. After adjusting for high-risk indications and selection bias, results also indicate that angioplasty patients (n = 13,384) who are given abciximab have a significantly shorter length of stay (0.89+/-0.12 fewer days) than those patients who did not receive abciximab. In a subgroup analysis of patients who had an acute myocardial infarction (n = 4,800), patients receiving abciximab were also found to have significantly shorter hospital stays (0.54+/-0.26 fewer days) than patients who did not receive abciximab. These results indicate that there are potential economic benefits for hospitals administering abciximab.