Secondary prevention of ischaemic cardiac events

Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of mortality in resource-rich countries, and is becoming a major cause of morbidity and mortality in resource-poor countries. Secondary prevention in this context is long-term treatment to prevent recurrent cardiac morbidity and mortality in people who have had either a prior acute myocardial infarction (MI) or acute coronary syndrome, or who are at high risk due to severe coronary artery stenoses or prior coronary surgical procedures. Secondary prevention in people with an acute MI or acute coronary syndrome within the past 6 months is not included.

We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical questions: What are the effects of antithrombotic treatment; other drug treatments; cholesterol reduction; blood pressure reduction; non-drug treatments; and revascularisation procedures? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library, and other important databases up to May 2010 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically, please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

We found 137 systematic reviews or RCTs that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.

In this systematic review, we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: advice to eat less fat, advice to eat more fibre, advice to increase consumption of fish oils, amiodarone, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers, angiotensin II receptor blockers plus ACE inhibitors, antioxidant vitamin combinations, antiplatelet agents, aspirin, beta-blockers, beta-carotene, blood pressure reduction, calcium channel blockers, cardiac rehabilitation including exercise, class I antiarrhythmic agents, coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), fibrates, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), Mediterranean diet, multivitamins, non-specific cholesterol reduction, oral anticoagulants, oral glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor inhibitors, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), psychosocial treatment, smoking cessation, statins, vitamin C, and vitamin E.