Rationale and design of the Turkish acute myocardial infarction registry: The TURKMI Study

OBJECTIVE: There is no up-to-date information regarding the presentation, management, and clinical course of patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) in Turkey. The TURKMI registry is designed to provide an insight into the characteristics, management from the symptoms onset to the hospital discharge, and outcome of patients with acute MI in Turkey. METHODS: The TURKMI study, as a nationwide registry, will be conducted in 50 percutaneous coronary intervention-capable centers, selected from each EuroStat NUTS region in Turkey according to their population sampling weight, prioritizing the hospital volume in each region. All consecutive patients with acute MI admitted to the coronary care units within the 48 hours of the symptoms onset will be prospectively enrolled during a predefined 2-week period. The first step of the study has a cross-sectional design in which baseline information such as symptoms, risk factors, time periods at each step from the symptoms onset to revascularization, way of arrival to hospital, biochemical analysis, and in-hospital management and outcome will be assessed. The second step has a cohort characteristic in which the enrolled patients will be followed-up up to 2 years. Follow-up visits will be conducted at the 1(st), 6(th), 12(th), and 24(th) month, and predictors and risk of cardiovascular events and implementation of guidelines will be assessed as secondary outcomes. CONCLUSION: The national TURKMI registry is expected to provide important information to improve the national policy regarding diagnosing, management, and outcomes of MI in Turkey.