Operator volumes and salvage index in AMI

Background Cardiac MR (CMR) is a useful diagnostic tool for the evaluation of myocardial infarction. While several previous studies have assessed the effect of operator volumes on outcome following coronary angioplasty, none have utilized salvage index measured by CMR as a primary endpoint. Prior studies relying on major adverse cardiac events as endpoints required very large sample sizes for sufficient power. The prognostic ability of CMR can, in theory, reduce the minimum necessary sample size, as recent research has provided evidence of CMR as a reliable, reproducible method for determining infarct size and AAR and salvage index via T2-weighted imaging.