The hotline sessions of the 24th European Congress of Cardiology.

Of the 18 presentations at the three Hotline Sessions of the 23rd European Congress of Cardiology, held in Stockholm, 1–4 September 2001, 15 are summarized, since three have already been published. The information given was collected by the authors during the presentations and also from press releases prepared by some speakers. This report shows only preliminary results. During the first Hotline Session, studies on early and long-term treatment of acute coronary syndromes were presented. Dr Uwe Zeymer from Kassel, Germany, presented the ESCAMI trial. This placebo-controlled randomized trial evaluated eniporide, an intravenous sodium hydrogen exchange inhibitor, in patients undergoing reperfusion therapy for acute myocardial infarction, of whom about 35% received primary PTCA and the others fibrinolytic therapy. The trial, which comprised 959 patients, consisted of both a dose finding and a dose confirmation phase. The primary endpoint of the study was enzymatic infarct size measured using the area under the curve of -HBDH. The two different dosages of eniporide (100 mg and 150 mg compared to placebo) revealed no significant differences in enzymatic infarct size. In addition, clinical outcome was similar in the eniporide and placebo treated patients. Professor P. Touboul from Lyon, France, presented an important, and so far unique trial, comparing pre-hospital fibrinolytic therapy with primary angioplasty in patients with acute ST elevation myocardial infarction (the CAPTIM trial). In seven cities in France, 840 patients with less than 6 h of signs and symptoms of acute myocardial infarction were randomized in a mobile intensive care unit, after having received aspirin and heparin, towards initiation of an accelerated rt-PA regimen, or immediate transport to a centre where primary balloon angioplasty was performed. In the fibrinolytic group, time between symptom onset and initiation of lytic therapy was 130 min, whereas in the primary PTCA group the time from symptom onset to first balloon inflation was 190 min. Assuming the major treatment effect is after 90 min