The latest heart disease treatment guidelines include powerful blood thinners, angioplasty - the procedure that opens clogged arteries, among many. The study, which was published in the May 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that as hospitals start implementing these guidelines, the rates of new heart failure and mortality rates go down.
AP quotes lead author Dr. Keith Fox, a cardiology professor at the University of Edinburgh as saying, "These results are really dramatic, because, in fact, they're the first time anybody has demonstrated a reduction in the development of new heart failure."
The study, which spanned six years, involved nearly 45,000 patients in 14 countries who had major heart attacks or dangerous partial artery blockages. The percentage of patients who died in the hospital or who developed heart failure was nearly cut in half from 1999 to 2005.
It was also found that the heart attack patients who received treatment recently stood at lesser risk of having another attack within six months of being hospitalized when compared to the patients treated six years earlier.
The authors studied patients from the United States, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
According to the data collected, nearly 4.6 percent of the heart attack patients died in the hospital in 2005, compared with 8.4 percent in 1999. Heart failure developed in 11 percent of heart attack patients in 2005, versus nearly 20 percent in 1999.
Also, just 2 percent had subsequent heart attacks in 2005, compared to 4.8 percent previously. The scientists attributed the remarkable changes to the frequent use of new practices that followed updated guidelines from key organizations of heart doctors in the United States and Europe.
