Nearly One-Half of Short-Term PCI Deaths Occur Post-Discharge

Those who die after rather than during index admission are younger, have better cardiac function

MONDAY, Dec. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly 40 percent of all post-percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) short-term deaths occur after discharge and within 30 days of the procedure, according to a study published in the Jan. 1 issue of The American Journal of Cardiology.

Edward L. Hannan, Ph.D., from the University at Albany School of Public Health in New York, and colleagues investigated the causes and risk factors of 30-day mortality among 51,695 patients who underwent PCI in New York in 2007 and were discharged alive from the hospital by Dec. 31. All patients were followed up for 30 days following discharge.

The investigators found that the in-hospital mortality rate and 30-day mortality rate were 0.56 and 0.38 percent, respectively, giving a combined rate of 0.94 percent. Of the PCI deaths that occurred in the index admission for PCI, or within 30 days after discharge, 40.5 percent occurred after discharge. For hospitals with ≥10 short-term deaths, the percentage of in-hospital and 30-day deaths ranged from 15 to 71 percent. Compared with patients who died in the index admissions, those who died within 30 days post-discharge were younger, had better ventricular function, and were less likely to have had a recent myocardial infarction or postprocedural complications. Most deaths within 30 days were attributed to cardiovascular causes, of which most were acute and cardiac. Chronic cardiac or vascular disease caused a small percentage of deaths.

"Patients who died <30 days after discharge for PCI constituted nearly 40 percent of all short-term deaths and were not as severely ill as patients dying in the hospital," the authors write.

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