Fewer deaths after heart attack

Fewer people die after a heart attack

04/04/2013

German cardiologists report that in Germany infarcts end less and less deadly. However, there are some enormous regional differences. If more patients die of heart attacks in East Germany, fewer deaths occur in the rest of the country. However, congestive heart failure is becoming more and more of a problem.

Every fourth death from vascular diseases
There are a variety of symptoms that may indicate a heart attack: severe to severe chest pain, back pain, nausea or a pulling in the arm. Women often have abdominal pain in a heart attack. About one in every four people in the world dies of occlusion of the blood vessels supplying the heart or a stroke. Due to this high number, vascular diseases have reached a very special status in the German health care system, leading to the availability of treatment teams around the clock in many cardiac catheterization laboratories, who, in the event of an emergency, can restore a closed artery.

Annual congress of cardiologists
In Mannheim, Germany's cardiologists met for their annual convention. There, the German Society of Cardiology (DGK) announced on Wednesday some positive results, especially the realization that in Germany a heart attack ends less and less deadly. Between 2000 and 2010, deaths among men fell by 15.8 and in women by 18.4 per cent. The numbers refer in each case to dead by heart attack per 100,000 inhabitants. The results show clear regional differences. If only 57 out of 100,000 inhabitants in Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein succumb to a heart attack, significantly more deaths occur in eastern Germany. The highest number in Saxony-Anhalt is 111 per 100,000 inhabitants. However, a rapprochement with the western figures is recognizable, says DGK President Georg Ertl. The reasons for this are the continuously improved care and changed habits in the East. Ertl further explained that "in the GDR people used to smoke more than in the West".

After a heart attack often a "weak heart"
In Germany, about every third patient dies of a heart attack. According to the Federal Statistical Office, in 2011 there were not quite 55300 cases. According to Ertl, "the reduction of fatal heart attacks is due to the high quality of care in Germany and the ever better medical options". There is also hope that the improved numbers will also indicate a healthier way of life. Overall, the total number of heart attacks last remained stable.

Due to the positive trend of a better chance of survival, the topic of heart failure is increasingly coming to the fore. It is a morbid inability of the heart to further promote the required amount of blood. After a heart attack, there is often a corresponding weakness of the heart. The number of patients has been increasing for years. In Germany, it is about two to three percent, but in the elderly, the number is significantly higher, according to the Heidelberg cardiologist Hugo Katus. Another explanation for this, however, is the aging society. (Ad)

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