WEDNESDAY, May 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Risk of heart failure appears high within a few years of a first myocardial infarction (MI), according to findings presented at the European Society of Cardiology's Heart Failure 2016, held from May 21 to 24 in Florence, Italy.
Johannes Gho, M.D., a cardiology resident at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, and colleagues analyzed data from 24,745 patients in the United Kingdom who suffered a first MI. Nearly 25 percent of these patients developed heart failure within four years.
Certain risk factors increased the risk of heart failure after a first MI, Gho and his colleagues said. For example, every 10-year rise in age was associated with a 45 percent higher risk, and the poorest patients had a 27 percent increased risk. Other health conditions associated with a higher risk of heart failure after a first MI included peripheral arterial disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, and ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction.
"Previous research looking at all-cause heart failure, not only after myocardial infarction, has found similar risk factors," Gho said in a European Society of Cardiology news release. "Identifying these prognostic factors in heart attack patients could help us predict their risk of developing heart failure and allow us to give treatments to reduce that risk."
Press Release
More Information