Queensland ambulance officers save lives with clot busting drug treatment

Jun 25 2008

In February this year paramedics in Queensland became the first in Australia to provide potentially lifesaving drugs to heart attack victims as part of a research project funded by the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS).

Previously in Australia only doctors were allowed to administer the clot busting drugs known as thrombolytic therapy, but between February and May, the therapy was used by paramedics to help save the lives of more than 20 patients.

The paramedics were trained to use an electrocardiogram (ECG) in order to diagnose a type of heart attack called ST-elevated myocardial infarction.

Dr. Con Aroney who is the Queensland President of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, says speedy treatment is vital in heart attack cases and the anti-blood clotting treatment such as tenecteplase can now be given in consultation with a hospital, at the scene of the attack.

Heart specialists say the longer a clot blocks the coronary artery of the heart the less chance a patient will have of recovery but if the drug can be administered as soon as possible the artery is much more likely to be unblocked and the patient is much more likely to survive.

The Cardiac Society believes the new practices will be adopted around the country as the early results have shown that this action is extremely beneficial.

Cardiologist Dr. Aroney says the treatment is carried out in consultation with hospitals and is already being performed overseas; in France in particular it has been shown that the prompt treatment results in lives being saved.

Normally such therapy is administered in emergency departments in hospitals but if the drugs can be administered earlier, such as at the site of patient's heart attack, then lives can be saved.

Dr. Aroney says the drug is given after an ECG is performed which is faxed to an emergency department where a senior doctor decides if the drug should be given - the drug is then administered by an intravenous drip.

Data on almost 30,000 overseas patients with chest pains showed that thrombolytics could be administered almost an hour earlier if given by paramedics at the scene.

QAS medical director Stephen Rashford said Queensland was the first Australian state to adopt the practice on a statewide basis.

The study led by health economist Professor Paul Scuffham, of Brisbane's Griffith University School of Medicine, found that the increased survival rates resulted in slightly higher healthcare costs for patients and their continuing medical and surgical management.

But Professor Scuffham says the cost of having paramedics administering thrombolytic therapy was a sound investment in improving patients' health.

The research is published online in Current Medical Research and Opinion.