Cardiovascular Atlas
About
Menu

Emergency stenting for ST-elevation heart attack (primary PCI)

Primary PCI means using percutaneous coronary intervention (balloon angioplasty, often with a stent) as an emergency treatment to reopen a blocked heart artery during a heart attack. A US government health page says PCI is done by a cardiologist in a hospital catheterization laboratory and is often done as soon as the team confirms a heart attack, and that early treatment helps limit damage to the heart. Target times were not read.

  • Intervention
  • In this atlas

Overview

Technical summary

A US government heart attack treatment page describes PCI with a stent after a heart attack and says that after a stent, anticlotting medicines are usually needed for a minimum of six to twelve months. It says the risk of complications is higher in older people, in people with kidney disease, with heart failure during the procedure, or with widespread heart disease affecting more than one coronary artery. The page does not use the terms primary PCI or ST-elevation. The terms primary PCI and ST-elevation appear in the abstract of a 2025 US guideline on acute coronary syndromes, which names a 2015 focused update on primary PCI for ST-elevation myocardial infarction among the guidance whose evidence it updates (see the claim). No reperfusion target or timing is recorded, because the guideline text could not be read.

About this intervention

Type
Procedure
Mechanism
A balloon on a catheter is inflated in the blocked artery, and a stent (a small mesh tube) may be placed to keep it open (US government health page).

Claims and evidence

Context Patients with acute coronary syndromes, as covered by the 2025 ACC/AHA/ACEP/NAEMSP/SCAI guideline (abstract)

Recipient
Recipient not specified
Population
Patients with acute coronary syndromes. The abstract names earlier guidelines on ST-elevation myocardial infarction and on non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndromes as the base whose evidence it updates, and it states no recommendation for any group.
Care setting
Not stated in the abstract.
Geography
United States (an American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guideline); the abstract names no other jurisdiction.
Life stage
The abstract states no age limits.
Gestational age
Not reported
Postnatal age
Not reported
Follow-up
Not applicable (guideline).
Eligibility: 1 inclusion criterion; exclusion criteria not stated
Included
  • Acute coronary syndromes (guideline title)
Excluded
None stated

  • Description Guidance Certainty not assessed

    The abstract of the 2025 ACC/AHA/ACEP/NAEMSP/SCAI Guideline for the Management of Patients With Acute Coronary Syndromes names, among the earlier guidance whose evidence it updates, the 2015 ACC/AHA/SCAI focused update on primary percutaneous coronary intervention for ST-elevation myocardial infarction.

    Source problem. A cited source is corrected. Check the sources before relying on this claim.

    Applies to Recipient not specified
    • Patients with acute coronary syndromes. The abstract names earlier guidelines on ST-elevation myocardial infarction and on non-ST-elevation acute coronary syndromes as the base whose evidence it updates, and it states no recommendation for any group.
    • Not stated in the abstract.
    • United States (an American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guideline); the abstract names no other jurisdiction.
    • The abstract states no age limits.
    • Gestational age Not reported
    • Postnatal age Not reported
    Follow-up Not applicable (guideline).
    Certainty method
    Not assessed
    Limitations
    Only the abstract was read. It names the focused update and says nothing about what it recommends, so no recommendation, class, level of evidence or reperfusion time is recorded. PubMed links three errata (corrections) to the Circulation version of the 2025 guideline (PMIDs 40163565, 40549849 and 41212941); their text was not read, so it is not known whether the corrections change anything the abstract says.
    Last checked
    2026-10-15
    Next evidence check due
    Not scheduled
    Sources and citations (3)

    1. Supports 2025 ACC/AHA/ACEP/NAEMSP/SCAI Guideline for the Management of Patients With Acute Coronary Syndromes: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines

      Publication · Circulation · Edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) fetched 2026-10-15 through NCBI E-utilities. No PMC copy is listed. Only the abstract was read: publisher pages (ahajournals.org) return HTTP 403 to scripts and were not tried by other means. PubMed links three errata (Circulation 2025 Apr;151(13):e865, PMID 40163565; 2025 Jun 24;151(25):e1098, PMID 40549849; 2025 Nov 11;152(19):e402, PMID 41212941) whose text was not read, so the source state is corrected. · Published 2025-02-27 · DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001309 · PMID: 40014670

      Locator
      Abstract, AIM, sentence 1, fragment 1 of 3
      How it applies
      Aim of the guideline, stated in the abstract.
      Retrieved
      Source effective date
      Not reported
      Source state
      Corrected
      Snapshot hash
      073d0f62da50e2485673334b533cb83924c205bf026fecff651633bccbee4a44
      Reuse basis
      PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (PubMed disclaimer, fetched 2026-10-15 as ck-pubmed-disclaimer.html, hash only). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation. Public text is quote, following Ben's decision of 2026-10-13 (medical-atlas-core issue 2) for PubMed and other NLM records.

    2. Supports 2025 ACC/AHA/ACEP/NAEMSP/SCAI Guideline for the Management of Patients With Acute Coronary Syndromes: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines

      Publication · Circulation · Edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) fetched 2026-10-15 through NCBI E-utilities. No PMC copy is listed. Only the abstract was read: publisher pages (ahajournals.org) return HTTP 403 to scripts and were not tried by other means. PubMed links three errata (Circulation 2025 Apr;151(13):e865, PMID 40163565; 2025 Jun 24;151(25):e1098, PMID 40549849; 2025 Nov 11;152(19):e402, PMID 41212941) whose text was not read, so the source state is corrected. · Published 2025-02-27 · DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001309 · PMID: 40014670

      Locator
      Abstract, AIM, sentence 1, fragment 2 of 3
      How it applies
      Aim of the guideline, stated in the abstract.
      Retrieved
      Source effective date
      Not reported
      Source state
      Corrected
      Snapshot hash
      073d0f62da50e2485673334b533cb83924c205bf026fecff651633bccbee4a44
      Reuse basis
      PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (PubMed disclaimer, fetched 2026-10-15 as ck-pubmed-disclaimer.html, hash only). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation. Public text is quote, following Ben's decision of 2026-10-13 (medical-atlas-core issue 2) for PubMed and other NLM records.

    3. Supports 2025 ACC/AHA/ACEP/NAEMSP/SCAI Guideline for the Management of Patients With Acute Coronary Syndromes: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines

      Publication · Circulation · Edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) fetched 2026-10-15 through NCBI E-utilities. No PMC copy is listed. Only the abstract was read: publisher pages (ahajournals.org) return HTTP 403 to scripts and were not tried by other means. PubMed links three errata (Circulation 2025 Apr;151(13):e865, PMID 40163565; 2025 Jun 24;151(25):e1098, PMID 40549849; 2025 Nov 11;152(19):e402, PMID 41212941) whose text was not read, so the source state is corrected. · Published 2025-02-27 · DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001309 · PMID: 40014670

      Locator
      Abstract, AIM, sentence 1, fragment 3 of 3
      How it applies
      Aim of the guideline, stated in the abstract.
      Retrieved
      Source effective date
      Not reported
      Source state
      Corrected
      Snapshot hash
      073d0f62da50e2485673334b533cb83924c205bf026fecff651633bccbee4a44
      Reuse basis
      PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (PubMed disclaimer, fetched 2026-10-15 as ck-pubmed-disclaimer.html, hash only). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation. Public text is quote, following Ben's decision of 2026-10-13 (medical-atlas-core issue 2) for PubMed and other NLM records.

Record details

Record id
cardio:primary-pci-for-stemi
Content hash
db099dde263d36eb9113e886f1e57711d0385d09d8d6c58cdb30421bcb7eebb6