MONDAY, March 24 (HealthDay News) -- Hospitals that participate in clinical trials adhere better to guidelines and have lower mortality than non-participating hospitals, even though few patients are enrolled in trials, according to study findings published in the March 24 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Sumit R. Majumdar, M.D., from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and colleagues studied 494 hospitals in the United States, of which 71 percent were clinical trial sites, that treated 174,062 patients with non-ST-segment elevation acute coronary syndrome.
The researchers found that only 2.6 percent of patients were enrolled in clinical trials. Increasing trial participation was associated with a significantly better composite guideline-adherence score (increasing from 76.9 to 81.1 percent from lowest to highest participation). Increasing trial participation was also associated with lower in-hospital mortality (decreasing from 5.9 to 3.5 percent from lowest to highest participation, adjusted odds ratio 0.9 for low enrollment, 0.8 for high enrollment).
Majumdar and colleagues conclude, "Compared with hospitals that do not participate in trials, those hospitals that do participate in trials seem to provide better care and to have lower mortality."
Abstract
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