18 May 2023
Continued global expansion of Stent – Save a Life!
There is no doubt that the original Stent for Life initiative had a huge, positive impact on morbidity and mortality in patients with STEMI in Europe. With the global Stent – Save a Life! (SSL) initiative comes the continued spread of the mission to other regions, particularly countries with the greatest healthcare needs.
The Stent – Save a Life! (SSL) community now includes 38 member countries driven to improve the delivery of care and patient access to primary PCI (pPCI). The SSL Board are keen to expand the initiative even further. Indeed, the signing ceremony of three new members – Azerbaijan, Peru and Aruba – took place at the SSL Annual Forum in Paris on Monday. Chair of SSL, Professor Jan J. Piek, explains one of the keys to its success: “We have learned from Stent for Life that our effectiveness is dependent on organisation – the work of national champions, local managers and the involvement of government at a local and national level are all essential.” He continues, “SSL provides support to each country for a few years, but we aim to create self-sustainable frameworks. Part of this involves highlighting the cost-effectiveness of pPCI to get government backing and funding to take over when our initial support ends.”
SSL’s success comes with huge pros but also some cons: “Member countries who have implemented our tailored action programmes have seen a real difference and this has led to other countries realising they need to improve their own systems,” notes Professor Piek. Participation of SSL at EuroPCR 2022, GulfPCR 2022 and AfricaPCR 2023 may have helped with this. Professor Piek and SSL Co-Chair Professor Thomas Alexander have also attended local meetings, including CardioAlex in Egypt, SOLACI in Mexico and the Azerbaijan Annual Society meeting. “However, everything that SSL does is on a voluntary basis,” states Professor Piek, “And as we continue to grow, we need more ‘hands on deck’ and more finances to make it happen, particularly when setting up programmes in low- and middle-income countries, as we are currently doing in Egypt, Sudan and investigating in Kenya.” As another example, Professor Piek highlights the issues in Peru, where there are only a small number of cathlabs in the capital of more than 10 million people and many rural areas have no pPCI access at all. To address these shortcomings, pilot programmes have begun in some of the new member countries, applying SSL’s methodological blueprint1 and the learnings from the STEMI India model2 validated by Professor Alexander and collaborators.
The appointment of new Regional Champions in Asia, Europe and the Middle East is one way that SSL is evolving to meet the demands of more members. In addition, regional coordination helps facilitate multinational studies and the results of a global study on pPCI performance variation were presented at Monday’s SSL Annual Forum. Also discussed were updates on a regional study on reperfusion strategies in LATAM countries, an African STEMI registry, and the development of a forthcoming study on the treatment of cardiogenic shock in STEMI in Asia.
Expansion of SSL calls for a greater understanding of the challenges facing different regions and, in this regard, EuroPCR 2023 provides the perfect opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss strategies. In addition to the Annual Forum, meetings of regional working groups have been held to discuss specific challenges faced by new and candidate countries in the SSL community.
References
- Candiello A, et al. EuroIntervention. 2022;17:1313–1317.
- Alexander T, et al. JAMA Cardiol. 2017;2:498–505.