THE THROMBOLYSIS AND ANGIOPLASTY IN MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION (TAMI) TRIALS - A DECADE OF REPERFUSION STRATEGIES

Beginning with its inception in 1985, the TAMI group performed randomi zed clinical trials in both academic and nonacademic settings. The ten TAMI trials not only proved the viability of clinical research in a n ontraditional environment, but also contributed significantly to the c linical investigation of acute myocardial infarction through small mec hanistic trials. Despite having insufficient power to address overall survival and clinical outcome measures because of patient enrollments ranging from only 50-575 patients, the trials used similar entry crite ria and follow-up measures, which permitted broader analyses of the pr ospectively collected dataset of randomized patients. This article rev iews the history of the TAMI collaboration and discusses the findings of the individual trials as well as the contributions of larger analys es to our understanding of patient selection, prognosis, costs, and ou tcomes.