title: Hospital mortality in patients with acute myocardial infarction: five-year experience.
abstract: Mortality during the hospitalization period was analyzed in a sample of 786 patients with acute myocardial infarction [AMI], admitted to the coronary care unit within a five-year period from a catchment area of 200 000 urban inhabitants. The total mortality during the hospitalization period amounted to 19.2%. The prognostic significance of certain clinically meaningful phenomena was appraised on the basis of their association to the mortality. It was demonstrated that the factors decisive for the prognosis of a patient with AMI are age, previous myocardial infarction, extent and localization of the ischaemic lesion apparent from the ECG tracing, and, in addition, presence of the atrioventricular and intraventricular conduction defects, especially if combined with anterior myocardial infarction. Patients with a high cumulation of these prognostic factors exhibited severe signs of mechanical heart failure, which is the mechanism of death in practically all of the deceased patients under the present possibilities of treatment.
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000368:Aged; D003604:Czechoslovakia; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000401:mortality; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000401:mortality*; D011379:Prognosis