Myocardial salvage and mortality in STEMI: A race against ischemic time.

Total ischemic time (IT) and door-to-balloon time (DBT) are two important measures in patients with ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). IT is a better predictor of cardiovascular outcomes than DTB, including infarct size and mortality, in STEMI patients treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention. IT should be adopted as a standard metric to measure quality of care in STEMI, and will help to promote improvements to our health care delivery system.