Prognosis of Patients Surviving First Clinically Diagnosed Myocardial Infarction

This paper is to report the prognosis and ultimate cause of death of patients who have survived the acute phase of their first clinically diagnosed myocardial infarction. Richards and his associates 1 indicated that of their 162 patients who survived at least 1 month after an initial attack of acute myocardial infarction 79 (49%) were alive five years later. Their 10-year survival figure was 31%. Weiss 2 reported 60% 5-year survival and 36% 10-year survival in a study of 211 patients who had lived more than 2 months after the initial attack. In a similar follow-up study Cole and associates 3 found 66% 5-year and 43% 10-year survival rates. An objection sometimes raised against such studies is that each series consists of selected patients who consulted a cardiologist or cardiovascular clinic because of the severity of the acute attack or because of a question regarding the diagnosis. Then, too, such