Both heparin and bivalirudin are antithrombotic agents.
They are administered to patients in the cardiac catheter
lab during their emergency treatment for STEMI. Both are
in widespread and routine clinical use around the world.
There is debate as to whether one has advantage over the
other. HEAT-PPCI was a randomised controlled trial
(RCT) designed to inform this debate.
A well-designed and well-conducted RCT provides
robust evidence about the effectiveness of treatment. In
RCTs, the study population is divided into two (or
more) groups. The groups receive comparable, routine
care—except for the treatment under investigation. A
key feature is that the treatment allocation is random.
Depending on the design of the study, the patients (and