MONDAY, Nov. 17, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Patients are more likely to die of ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) if they suffer it in a hospital while being treated for non-cardiac conditions, according to research published in the Nov. 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a cardiovascular disease theme issue. Findings were released early to coincide with presentation at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association, held from Nov. 15 to 19 in Chicago.
The study authors examined statistics from 2008 to 2011 in California. They found 62,021 cases of STEMI in 303 hospitals, including 3,068 that occurred among hospitalized patients not being treated for acute coronary conditions.
Those who developed inpatient-onset STEMI had a 33.6 percent mortality rate compared to outpatient-onset STEMI, which was 9.2 percent. The researchers noted that the hospitalized patients who had a STEMI were more frequently older and female.
"The question of how to improve outcomes and define optimum treatment in hospitalized patients who experience a STEMI is an area that merits more attention and concern," the researchers, led by Prashant Kaul, M.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in a journal news release. "Although there have been improvements in treatment times and clinical outcomes in outpatients who have onset of STEMI, few initiatives have focused on optimizing care of hospitalized patients with onset of STEMI after admission."
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