Long-Term Anticoagulant Therapy After Myocardial Infarction

To the Editor.— The place of anti-coagulant therapy for a prolonged period after recovery from acute myocardial infarction is still controversial. A randomized clinical trial of this treatment conducted at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center,while essentially negative, studied 243 men and 85 women who had recovered from acute myocardial infarction; they were followed up for one to three years. All except 20 patients had participated in the study of anticoagulant therapy for acute myocardial infarction previously reported (222:541, 1972). Those treated with anticoagulants during the period of hospitalization after acute myocardial infarction were randomly divided at the time of discharge into three groups: (1) continuous therapy with anticoagulants for the duration of the study; (2) anticoagulant treatment for one year, then abrupt termination for the remainder of the study; and (3) control, no anticoagulant therapy. An unrandomized group (group 4) (54 men, 13 women), not treated with anticoagulants in