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Unusually high heart attack mortality in Saxony-Anhalt
In Saxony-Anhalt, many people die from heart attacks in comparison to other federal states. Often the patient can not be helped anymore, because the rescue is called too late - although in the case of a heart attack seconds can decide about life and death. Accordingly, as part of a new research project, the behavior of those affected in an emergency should now be examined in more detail.
103 heart attack deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in Saxony-Anhalt
The mortality due to a heart attack appears to be large regional differences. According to the German Heart Foundation e.V., Saxony-Anhalt, with 103 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (2011: 104), is one of the federal states with the highest heart attack mortality, along with Brandenburg with 105 (96) and Saxony with 94 (92) cases. Values that are well above the German average, which in 2012 according to the "Heart Report 2014" was 65.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants (63.7).
Now a new study is intended to clarify why so many people in Saxony-Anhalt are dying from the consequences of an acute heart attack. It would be especially interesting how those affected behave in an emergency, said Rüdiger Christian Braun-Dullaeus of the University Hospital Magdeburg told the news agency "dpa". Because the chances of survival in a heart attack are the better, the faster it is treated - but would often wait too long until a doctor is called, the cardiologist continued.
Study examines the causes of the high mortality rate in Saxony-Anhalt. Picture: pixelaway - fotolia 194 minutes pass until treatment in the hospital
A comparable research project from Munich had come to the conclusion that in men on average 194 minutes pass until a patient with symptoms of infarction reaches the clinic. In the case of women, medical care would take place 230 minutes later, and in some cases even days would pass before those affected sought medical help.
In Saxony-Anhalt, according to the Regional Heart Attack Register, in an infarct, an average of more than an hour would pass before the ambulance service is alerted. Why is the emergency call often waited so long, so far only little research, reports study director Prof. Dr. med. Karl-Heinz Ladwig from the Helmholtz Center Munich. First results, however, would indicate that many people are not sufficiently informed about the symptoms of a heart attack and therefore misjudge the risk.
Women often experience atypical symptoms such as upper abdominal pain or pressure in the chest "The older the patients who have a heart attack, the lower the proportion of those with specific symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath, sweating and vomiting. This is especially true for women over the age of 65, "says Prof. Ladwig in a statement from the German Heart Foundation.
Women, on the other hand, experience significantly more pressure or a feeling of tightness in the chest, moreover atypical symptoms such as back and upper abdominal pain occur more frequently. As a result, the untypical complaints would often be concentrated and no emergency call would be canceled due to the lack of suspicion of a heart attack. med. Christiane Tiefenbacher from the Scientific Advisory Board of the German Heart Foundation.
An infarction counts every minute
However, every minute counts for the care of the patients, because the infarction can trigger life-threatening ventricular fibrillation at any time and lead to the so-called "sudden cardiac death". "Only treatment in the clinic can protect the heart from serious damage and the patient from life-threatening complications", Prof. Dr. med. med. Dietrich Andresen from the board of the German Heart Foundation quoted in the message. "A condition is that with infarction suspicion immediately with the emergency call number 112 an ambulance with emergency physician is alarmed."
The Munich project should now be transferred to Magdeburg and run until 2017 to clarify the reasons for the high infarct mortality in Saxony-Anhalt. According to the study leaders Ladwig and Braun-Dullaeus, the goal is to intensively survey every infarct sufferer in the future in order to be able to develop better intervention programs based on this information. The study also examined the influence of local factors (labor market situation, social status, age structure, etc.) on the risk of heart attack, so that in the end an East-West comparison could be made using the data from both studies. (No)