ReviewArchives of academic emergency medicine2025
Prehospital ECG Interpretation Methods for ST-Elevation MI Detection and Catheterization Laboratory Activation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Review in Archives of academic emergency medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prehospital 12-Lead ECG Teletransmission in Acute Coronary Syndromes: Diagnostic, Prognostic, and Systems-of-Care Implications.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Pre-Hospital Delay in STEMI: A Narrative Review of Symptom Onset-to-First Medical Contact Across High-Income and Low- and Middle-Income Countries.Clinical cardiology · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: The diagnostic accuracies of different electrocardiography (ECG) interpretation methods remain unclear. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically evaluate and compare the diagnostic accuracy of prehospital 12-lead ECG interpretation methods for identifying ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and activating cardiac catheterization laboratories (CCLs). Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted in Medline, Scopus, and CINAHL databases up to August 2024. Two reviewers independently selected studies that assessed the diagnostic accuracy of prehospital 12-lead ECG in real-time STEMI identification and CCL activation. Pooled estimates of sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and area under the curve (AUC) were calculated using bivariate generalized mixed-effects regression models or random-effects meta-analysis as appropriate. The quality of the included studies was assessed using the QUADAS-2 tool. Results: Thirty-six studies involving 67,168 patients were included. Overall, for STEMI identification, the pooled AUC of ECG was 0.96 (95%CI:0.94-0.98), sensitivity was 80% (95% CI, 69-88%), specificity was 97% (95%CI: 94-98%), and DOR was 114 (95%CI: 59-222). Ambulance clinicians achieved the highest DOR (264; 95%CI: 33-2125), followed by transmission method (136; 95%CI, 59-312) and computer-assisted analysis (78; 95%CI: 33-186). Transmission method demonstrated superior specificity (0.98; 95%CI: 0.94-0.99) and the lowest rates of inappropriate (13.2%; 95% CI: 8.6%-19.2%), and false-positive (11.0%; 95%CI: 6.9%-15.0%) CCL activations. Conclusion: All prehospital ECG interpretation methods yielded acceptable diagnostic accuracy for STEMI identification; however, transmission offered the greatest specificity and fewer unnecessary CCL activations. Adopting transmission-based strategies, where feasible, and enhancing training and decision support for ambulance clinicians may improve prehospital STEMI detection and resource utilization.
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Registered trials
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