Author Interviews, Heart Disease, JAMA, Surgical Research / 02.09.2016
Invasive Cardiac Therapies Linked To Better Survival Following Heart Attack
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr Marlous Hall PhD
Senior Epidemiologist
Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: It is well known that death rates following heart attacks have fallen considerably over recent decades. Many studies have looked at the effect of medications and invasive strategies, and their association with better clinical outcomes is clear.
However, a big question remains: why have heart attack deaths fallen? Is it due to increased use of medications and treatment, is the risk of patients simply lower over time due to things like earlier diagnosis or are patients generally healthier with fewer comorbidities such as diabetes? Answering this is not straightforward - as gold standard studies like clinical trials on historic data cannot be done.
An alternative approach is to look for patterns in data observed from routine care to look at all these factors together. This study used a large and rich dataset covering heart attack care in the UK (Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP)). This dataset was linked to outcome data from the Office for National Statistics to allow us to look at all the different factors that could influence the change in mortality over time.
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