Earlier this week, JAMA Network Open made public the findings of a research study which answers an important question: Which adverse cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular events are most relevant to patients?
“Cardiovascular research has traditionally been focused on ‘tombstone’ outcomes such as death and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE),” said Dr. Louise Sun, a cardiac anesthesiologist at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and the study’s lead author. “To date, little attention has been paid to outcomes that are most relevant from the patient’s perspective. Our paper provides, for the first time, a consensus-based outcome that reflects what patients truly value so far as their disease is concerned.”
Dr. Sun and her team examined the perspectives of a national panel of patients with lived experience, their caregivers, and a multidisciplinary team of clinicians, and narrowed the definition of PACE (patient-derived adverse cardiovascular and non-cardiovascular events) to a five-item list.
PACE: What events matter most to heart patients
- Severe stroke causing hospitalization for 14 days or more or inpatient rehabilitation.
- Ventilator dependence.
- New onset or worsening heart failure.
- Nursing home admission.
- New onset dialysis.
“For heart research, PACE is important because it is versatile with administrative databases and prospectively collected data,” said Sun. “It can readily be applied as a patient-centred outcome in interventional clinical trials and large epidemiological studies to ensure management of cardiovascular disease is founded on outcomes that are important and relevant to patients, caregivers, and clinicians.”
To learn more, read Derivation of Patient-Defined Adverse Cardiovascular and Noncardiovascular Events Through a Modified Delphi Process.
Media contact
Leigh B. Morris
Communications Officer
University of Ottawa Heart Institute
613-316-6409 (cell)
lmorris@ottawaheart.ca