Compared with TIMI RS, both PURSUIT RS and GRACE RS allow better discrimination for in-hospital and 1 year mortality in patients presenting with a wide range of ACS. All three risk scores confer additional important prognostic value beyond global risk assessment by physicians. These validated risk scores may refine risk stratification, thereby improving patient care in routine clinical practice.

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Objective:Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) represents a considerable global health concern. The goal of the InSight study was to investigate the prevalence of TRD and to evaluate its clinical characterization and management, compared with nonresistant depression, in primary care centres.Methods:Physicians completed a case report on a consecutive series of patients with major depressive disorder (n = 1212), which captured patient demographics and comorbidity, as well as current and past medication.Results:Using failure to respond to at least 2 antidepressants (ADs) from different classes as the definition of TRD, the overall prevalence was 21.7%. There were no differences in prevalence between men and women or among ethnicities. Patients with TRD had longer episode duration, were more likely to receive polypharmacy (for example, psychotropic, lipid-lowering, and antiinflammatory agents), and reported more AD related side effects. Higher rates of disability and comorbidity (axes I to III) were associated with treatment resistance. Obesity and being overweight were also associated with treatment resistance. While the selection and sequencing of pharmacotherapy by family physicians in this sample was in line with recommendations from evidence-based treatment guidelines, the wait time to make a change in treatment was 6 to 8 weeks in both groups, which exceeds guideline recommendations.Conclusions:These real-world data demonstrate the high prevalence of TRD in primary care settings, and underscore the substantial burden of illness associated with TRD.

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Background: Randomized clinical trials have established the efficacy of an early invasive management strategy for high-risk non-ST elevation acute coronary syndromes (ACSs). We examined the use of in-hospital cardiac catheterization and medications in relation to risk across the broad spectrum of non-ST elevation ACSs.

Background-Current pharmacotherapeutic options for high-risk non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome patients include aspirin, clopidogrel, heparin, and platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibition. A key issue of uncertainty is the safety and efficacy of combination glycoprotein IIb/IIIa inhibitor and low-molecular-weight heparin therapy. Methods and Results-We randomized 746 patients with rest ischemic discomfort within 24 hours after the onset of symptoms and ST-segment deviation and/or elevation of serum cardiac markers to receive open-label enoxaparin (1 mg/kg subcutaneously twice daily) or unfractionated heparin (70-U/kg bolus; 15 U · kg Ϫ1 · h Ϫ1 infusion, titrated to an activated partial thromboplastin time of 1.5 to 2 times control) for 48 hours. All patients received aspirin and eptifibatide (180-g/kg bolus; 2 g · kg Ϫ1 · min Ϫ1 infusion). Major non-coronary artery bypass surgery-related bleeding at 96 hours (primary safety outcome) was significantly lower among enoxaparin-treated patients than among heparin-treated patients (1.8% versus 4.6%, Pϭ0.03). Minor bleeding was more frequent in the enoxaparin group (30.3% versus 20.8%, Pϭ0.003). Patients in the enoxaparin group were less likely to experience ischemia as detected by continuous ECG evaluation (primary efficacy outcome) during the initial (14.3% versus 25.4%, Pϭ0.0002) and subsequent (12.7% versus 25.9%, PϽ0.0001) 48-hour monitoring periods. Death or myocardial infarction at 30 days was significantly lower in the enoxaparin group (5% versus 9%, Pϭ0.031). Conclusions-When aspirin and eptifibatide are used in high-risk non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome patients, enoxaparin improves outcomes (determined on the basis of better safety and efficacy) compared with currently recommended unfractionated heparin therapy and provides a useful novel alternative therapeutic strategy.