|
|
Death Risk Highest One Month After Heart Attack
People are most at risk of death in the first month after a heart attack a new study finds.
The new research should prompt doctors to rethink how patients are treated in those crucial early days. The rate of sudden death was 10 times higher in the first month after a heart attack compared to two years later, researchers report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Most heart attacks are caused by blockages that deprive the pumping muscle of blood and oxygen. Treatments can clear these and restore blood flow, but damage from the heart attack can lead to abnormal rhythms that can stop the heart without warning. The problem is becoming more common as heart attack treatment improves. Sudden death now accounts for 2 out of 3 heart deaths in the United States, about 450,000 cases each year.
Researchers studied 14,609 post-heart attack patients enrolled in a drug trial who suffered a muscle-damaging heart attack or heart failure between 1998 and 2001. Seven percent either died suddenly or were revived after cardiac arrest. Researchers found 19 percent of all sudden deaths or cardiac arrests happened within a month of a heart attack. The rate of sudden death or cardiac arrest was highest in the first month after a heart attack — 1.4 percent compared to 0.14 after two years.
|
|
|
