Anticoagulant Treatment of Acute Coronary Thrombosis

Abstract. Four hundred and fifty‐one patients with acute myocardial infarction were placed, according to their date of admission, in one of two groups: an anticoagulant‐treated group and a placebo group. After the exclusion of patients who died within 48 hours, patients whose diagnosis was only made post mortem, and a few patients who, for various other reasons, had to be left untreated, there remained 276 patients for the trial: 156 patients in the anticoagulant‐treated group and 120 patients in the placebo group. The results, in terms of mortality rate, thrombo‐embolic complications, and haemorrhagic incidents, were evaluated after 4 weeks' treatment (short‐term material), and again after an observation period of up to two years in the 139 anticoagulant‐treated patients and the 95 placebo patients who survived the first four weeks (long‐term material). In the short‐term material the anticoagulant‐treated group showed a statistically significant reduction in the number of thrombo‐embolic complications and the mortality rate. In the long‐term material there was a statistically significant reduction in the mortality rate in anticoagulant‐treated patients who, during the acute stage, had been classified as bad risks; and in the recurrence rate for patients over 60. In only one patient, during long‐term treatment, could death be ascribed for certain to this treatment.