I think the take home message from this trial is that these patients are very sick and have a poor prognosis. There did not seem to be a major downside of IABP therapy from the trial. Whilst I am a Cardiac Technician, rather than a Cardiologist, our Cardiologist's discussed this trial but did not feel there was enough evidence to stop using IABP in these patients

The timing of IABP insertion was not controlled in this study as 86.6% went in post PCI. Damage may have been done already i.e same as no IABP. We use the IABP in our unit and the trial has not changed our practise.