Clinical disease registries in acute myocardial infarction

Abstract

Disease registries, containing systematic records of cases, have for nearly 100 years been valuable in exploring and understanding various aspects of cardiology. This is particularly true for myocardial infarction, where such registries have provided both epidemiological and clinical information that was not readily available from randomised controlled trials in highly-selected populations. Registries, whether mandated or voluntary, prospective or retrospective in their analysis, have at their core a common study population and common data definitions. In this review we highlight how registries have diversified to offer information on epidemiology, risk modelling, quality assurance/improvement and original research-through data mining, transnational comparisons and the facilitation of enrolment in, and follow-up during registry-based randomised clinical trials.

Keywords: Myocardial infarction, Acute coronary syndrome, Coronary artery disease, Health statistics, Ethics, Patient records, Audit, Research, Patient safety

Core tip: Clinical disease registries are one of the oldest types of research methodology. They have been particularly important in the researching and guiding the management of myocardial infarction. Registries in multi-site studies can often be cheaper and simpler to undertake and less demanding of patients, and allow huge volumes of data to be collected from which many landmark studies already have been published.