Evaluation and management of patients with acute chest pain in China (EMPACT): protocol for a prospective, multicentre registry study

INTRODUCTION: Acute chest pain represents a major healthcare burden in emergency departments (ED) throughout the world. Among these patients, rapidly determining whether an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is evolving remains difficult. In China, there are limited data correlating the baseline characteristics, evaluation and management of ED patients with acute chest pain and ACS-related symptoms with clinical outcomes. Nor has there been an evaluation of outcomes at different levels of hospitals. The Evaluation and Management of Patients with Acute ChesT pain in China (EMPACT) study will address this evidence gap through a regional representative prospective registry. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: Twenty-two public hospitals with ED in Shandong province have been selected based on a stratified random sampling approach. A total of 10 000 patients with acute chest pain or suspected ACS presenting to the ED will be consecutively enrolled from January 2016 to September 2017. Episodes of care will be evaluated for key performance measures such as the time to first ECG, receipt of troponin testing, receipt of reperfusion therapy for ST segment elevation ACS and provision of angiography for troponin-positive patients. All patients will be assessed for the composite endpoint of adjudicated major adverse cardiac events in 30 days after presentation, including death from all causes, non-fatal myocardial infarction, urgent revascularisation, stroke, cardiac arrest and cardiogenic shock. The secondary outcomes include revisit to ED and rehospitalisation within 30 days. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethics approval was obtained at all participating centres. The registry is the first attempt to comprehensively evaluate the current emergency care of acute chest pain from a regional representative sample in China. Findings will allow new opportunities to facilitate the clinical quality improvements and ultimately reduce the mortality in patients with acute chest pain and suspected ACS. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02536677; Pre-results.