Acute myocardial infarction. Prognosis complicated by ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest
R. Goldberg, M. Szklo, J. A. Tonascia and H. L. Kennedy
A community-wide study was conducted in metropolitan Baltimore in which the
prognosis of 330 patients hospitalized with an acute myocardial infarction
(MI) complicated by ventricular fibrillation or cardiac arrest (VFib/CA)
was compared with that of 1,071 patients hospitalized with acute MI not
complicated by VFib/CA. As expected, the in-hospital case-fatality rate
among patients with MI complicated by VFib/CA was significantly higher than
that in patients without VFib/CA. However, for patients discharged alive
from the hospital, no significant differences in long-term survival were
found between patients with MI with or without VFib/CA. These results
suggest that attempts at preventing subsequent mortality should be
diligently pursued in patients with MI who are discharged alive from the
hospital regardless of the occurrence of VFib/CA in the acute phase.
