Although improvements in the health care field means that more people are surviving heart attacks, a new study suggests that one in four patients develop heart failure within four years of their first heart attack. The findings stem from a study of almost 25,000 patients that was presented by Johannes Gho, a cardiology resident at the University Medical Center Utrecht.
"Heart failure is a major medical problem with a high chance of hospitalization and death," Gho said. "Patients with ischemic heart disease are at the highest risk. This includes those who have had a myocardial infarction, also called heart attack."
"Research studying incidence of heart failure following myocardial infarction is limited and mainly stems from the thrombolytic era, when drugs were used to dissolve blood clots," he continued. "Today the preferred treatment for acute myocardial infarction is percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) where a stent is used to open the blocked artery."
Gho and his team examined electronic health records in order to determine the incidence and risk factors connected to heart failure after the first heart attack in order to pinpoint preventative strategies. The team gathered its data from the United Kingdom-based Cardiovascular Disease Research Using Linked Bespoke Studies and Electronic Records (CALIBER) program.
The team examined 24,745 patients aged 18 or older that experienced their first heart attack between Jan. 1, 1988 and March 25, 2010 and had no prior history of heart failure. Afterwards, a follow-up was conducted for a median of 3.7 years, and during this follow-up, 6,005 of the patients developed heart failure.
"Around one in four patients developed heart failure within four years of a first myocardial infarction in the current era," Gho said. "This was relatively stable over time possibly due to two competing trends. On the one hand, PCI has improved treatment for myocardial infarction so the risk of heart failure would be expected to decrease. On the other hand, because treatment has improved, more patients are alive after a heart attack to subsequently get heart failure."
Factors connected to an increased risk of developing heart failure include aging, greater socioeconomic deprivation, atrial fibrillation and diabetes.
"Previous research looking at all cause heart failure, not only after myocardial infarction, has found similar risk factors," Gho said. "Our large cohort study confirms that these are also risky conditions for heart attack patients in the current era."
"Identifying these prognostic factors in heart attack patients could help us predict their risk of developing heart failure and allow us to give treatments to reduce that risk," he concluded.
The findings were presented at Heart Failure 2016, an annual conference held by the European Society of Cardiology.
