Long-Term Prognosis after Resuscitation from Primary Ventricular Fibrillation Complicating Acute Transmural Myocardial Infarction in the North East of Scotland

The aim of this study is to determine the long-term prognosis of patients successfully resuscitated from primary ventricular fibrillation in the acute phase of transmural myocardial infarction and to identify predictors of mortality. Details of 75 consecutive patients between October 1971 and May 1981 were reviewed in October 1985. The cumulative survival rates at one year, two year, five year and 10 year were 84%, 77% 67% and 40.5% respectively with a median survival time of 8.7 years. Univariate and Cox survival analyses were used to determine predictors of mortality. Only the age of the patient at the time of infarction was found to be highly significant with a greatly increased mortality rate in the older age group (p less than 0.001). The sex, site of infarction (anterior or inferior) and time of entry in the study did not significantly influence long-term prognosis.