WEDNESDAY, Jan. 16 (HealthDay News) -- The factors affecting the risk of short- and long-term adverse outcomes differ in patients presenting with syncope, a temporary loss of consciousness and posture, according to the results of a study in the Jan. 22 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Giorgio Costantino, M.D., from the University of Milan in Italy, and colleagues examined short- and long-term outcomes in 676 patients who presented with syncope in an emergency department.
The researchers found that 6.1 percent of patients experienced a severe outcome (death or a major therapeutic procedure) in the 10 days after presentation, which was associated with factors such as an abnormal electrocardiogram and male gender. Long-term severe outcomes occurred in 9.3 percent of patients, which was associated with factors such as older age (over 65 years), ventricular arrhythmias and history of cancer. Short-term major therapeutic procedures were significantly more common and one-year mortality was significantly higher in patients admitted to the hospital.
"Risk factors for short- and long-term adverse outcomes after syncope differed," Costantino and colleagues conclude. "Hospital admission favorably influenced syncope short-term prognosis. Instead, one-year mortality was unaffected by hospital admission and related to comorbidity."
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