Does continuous long-term anticoagulant therapy reduce mortality and recurrence of infarction in patients who survived a myocardial infarct?
Continuous long-term anticoagulant therapy post-myocardial infarction is associated with lower mortality and fewer recurrent infarctions, particularly in patients with severe initial attacks or prior infarctions.
Eighty-two patients who survived a myocardial infarct were treated continuously with anticoagulants for periods of 3 to 76 months. Another 88 patients whose treatment with anticoagulants was limited to the acute phase of an infarction and who were observed for similar periods acted as a control group. The group treated continuously exhibits a lower mortality rate with fewer recurrences of infarction. Among the factors subjected to statistical analysis and found to influence the ultimate prognosis unfavourably and which therefore serve as indications for long-term anticoagulant therapy, are a severe presenting attack and a history of previous infarction.
Suzman et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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