How to stop heart attacks

Despite substantial progress in the diagnosis and treatment of heart attack patients, prevention of recurrent heart attacks continues to be a major clinical challenge.

A new study showed that patients who suffered a non-fatal heart attack within the first three months of hospitalization for chest pain had a significantly higher risk for dying or having another heart attack (in the following three months to four years) compared with patients who did not experience a heart attack during the same initial period.

The findings from the more-than-15,000- patient study were presented today at the annual meeting of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research conference. The conference will go this week until the 11th.

The increased rate of heart attack and death among patients who had a heart attack remained similar even when the monitoring was extended from a three-to-six month period.