Heart attack mortality reduced by 70 percent

Cardiologists: mortality from heart attack reduced by 70 percent

04/12/2012

According to leading cardiologists, heart attacks today are no longer a death sentence. Thanks to state-of-the-art medical treatment methods, the mortality rate for heart attacks has dropped by 70 percent in recent years. Nevertheless, the number of heart diseases continues to increase overall. Many patients survive a heart attack with a weakened heart. The consequence: life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias. However, scientists now doubt whether a treatment makes sense in any case.

Interventional treatments successful in heart attacks
The mortality rate after heart attacks has reduced in recent years by 70 percent, the experts said. Ellen Hoffmann, President of the Annual Conference of the German Society of Cardiology (DGK) and Chief Physician at the Municipal Hospital Munich, sees the main reason for the gentle, so-called interventional treatments. Interventional methods have been developed very rapidly and successfully in recent years. „Sudden cardiac death today can be averted by means of modern defibrillators and disease causes can be remedied interventionally using a cardiac catheter“, Hoffmann told the news agency „dpa“.

Artificial scar production to suppress electronic impulses that trigger atrial fibrillation is also one of the methods presented at the 78th annual conference of the DGK from April 11 to 14 in Mannheim, reports Eckart Fleck from the German Heart Center Berlin. Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder and can lead to some stroke situations.

DGK President Georg Ertl points out that although more and more patients would survive a heart attack, this is often associated with heart failure. The number of people with heart disease therefore continues to increase. Considering the dramatically rising costs one must also consider whether really everything that could be done should actually be done. „The question arises as to whether every ninety-year-old still needs an aortic valve procedure“, Ertl explained.

Causes of heart attack
Heart attack, also known in medical jargon as myocardial infarction, is a life-threatening event due to heart disease. Parts of the heart muscle die as a result of disruption of blood flow. As a rule, the circulatory disturbance is triggered by blood clots in a constriction of a coronary vessel, for example by arteriosclerosis. If patients are treated medically within the first hour, the chance is greatest that the vascular occlusion can be completely reversed. Therefore, sufferers should notify the emergency call as soon as possible in order to be treated as soon as possible. Many patients often respond too late.

Risk factors for heart attacks include smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure and a family history. Overweight, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity can add to some risk factors. (Ag)

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