A new study led by a Canadian researcher suggests that hospitals that participate in clinical trials have lower mortality rates and offer better care to patients with heart ailments.

The study, which appeared Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, analyzed data from the cases of over 170,000 patients who were suffering from heart attacks or related symptoms.

The patients were from just under 500 hospitals that were participating in a voluntary data collection and quality improvement program for treating heart patients that was established by the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association.

Patients were put into one of three categories: those that were treated in a hospital that had no trial participation, low participation or high participation.

Researchers, led by Dr. Sumit R. Majumdar of the University of Alberta, found that hospitals that were not participating in clinical trials had a lower adherence rate to the program's guidelines than hospitals that had low or high clinical trial participation rates.

Guideline adherence rates were:

• 76.9 per cent for hospitals that did not participate in clinical trials.
• 78.3 per cent for hospitals with low participation in clinical trials.
• 81.1 per cent for hospitals with high participation in clinical trials.

As well, patients treated at hospitals with high trial participation rates were less likely to die in hospital. Mortality rates were 3.5 per cent at these hospitals, versus 4.4 per cent for those with low participation in trials, and 5.9 per cent for those that did not participate in trials at all.

"Patients treated at hospitals that participate in clinical trials seem to receive better quality of care and seem to have significantly better outcomes than patients treated at hospitals that do not participate in trials -- at least in the setting of acute coronary syndrome," the study's authors said.

"For policy makers and physicians, our findings should assuage some of the concerns related to the possible opportunity costs and potential downsides of participating in the clinical research enterprise."

The information encompassed cases between January 1, 2001 and June 30, 2006.