Experience of ST Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction Management During COVID-19 Pandemic From the Mainland of China

BACKGROUND: The pandemic of COVID-19 has created a crisis in healthcare systems across the globe. This situation would affect the diagnosis and treatment of patients with STEMI. The outbreak was under improved control in the mainland of China. We here describe the impact of this pandemic on STEMI patient's management. METHODS: Information of STEMI patient management was collected from the CPC data reporting platform. We compared these with data of patients from the same period in 2018 and 2019. Also we made an analysis of those characteristics in each month in 2020. RESULTS: There was 51.4% decrease of STEMI patients admitted to hospital during the peak period of COVID-19 epidemic. The ratio of no reperfusion of STEMI patients is more than 10% higher in 2020 than 2018, 2019. The percentage of STEMI patients received fibrinolysis in 2020 was 2 to 3 times higher than that in 2018, 2019, while the volume of PPCI dropped by more than half. The mortality rate of whole cohort and perioperative was the highest in February 2020. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19 pandemic dramatically reduced the number of STEMI patients attending hospital and delay the time to treatment and consequently, a higher in-hospital mortality. The benefits of thrombolysis during the pandemic remain to be proven.