Although the type and intensity of treatment for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) [heart attack] varies widely across the country, elderly patients who receive intensive medical treatment may have comparable survival as those who undergo invasive cardiac procedures (such as angioplasty and bypass surgery), according to a study in the March 16 issue of JAMA.
According to background information, more than 280,000 Medicare enrollees are admitted to hospitals with AMI annually. "These patients face a high risk of short-term death: 18 percent die within 30 days of admission," the authors write. "Much of the effort to reduce this high mortality rate has focused on invasive diagnostic and therapeutic interventions." The authors continue, "Noninvasive, inexpensive, medical management, including aspirin, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors [ACE inhibitors], and beta-blockers [medications used to treat high blood pressure], as well as thrombolysis [therapy to reduce blood clots], reduces mortality (death) following AMI."
Therese A. Stukel, Ph.D., from Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, N.H., and colleagues analyzed data from 158,831 elderly Medicare patients hospitalized with a first episode of confirmed AMI in 1994 - 1995, followed up for 7 years. The researchers examined the intensity of invasive management (measured as whether the patients received a cardiac catheterization within 30 days), and medical management (measured by prescription of beta-blockers to appropriate patients at discharge from hospital).