Pattern of Repeat Cardiovascular Events During Follow-up After First Diagnosed Event-MI

Recurrent myocardial infarctions (reinfarctions) can be due to recurrence at the original treatment site, the presence of untreated lesions elsewhere, or in progressive lesions. There are scarce published data describing the localization (affected vessel/s) and severity (NSTE-ACS/STE-ACS) of reinfarction(s) compared to the index MI (e.g proportion of recurrent infarctions in the previously diseased vessel) in large unselected patient populations. If reinfarctions are generally more severe than index MI/recurrent MI(s), this might have implications for choice of treatment and treatment length. Moreover, data from unselected patient populations on the overall incidence pattern/rate of patients experiencing multiple reinfarctions is sparse. Patients who experience multiple ischemic events may be a subset of patients who are poor responders to therapy. There is also a possibility that patients with multiple events are less likely to have received evidence-based therapy such as coronary stenting, novel and more effective antithrombotics and modern lipid lowering treatment for the initial event. Poor adherence to secondary prevention measures (e.g. low compliance to medication and adherence to cardiac rehabilitation programs) may also increase the risk of recurrent events. Therefore identification of the baseline characteristics, including treatment decision strategies in the setting of a myocardial infarction, among such subjects may allow modifications of the clinical management strategy prior to the occurrence of subsequent ischemic events. Such modifications could include providing a more intensive or additional therapy in certain patient groups or find strategies to improve patient adherence and drug compliance. A patient with reinfarctions requires more hospitalizations, treatments, laboratory tests, and out-patient visits, resulting in overall increased costs. From the patient perspective, recurrent events result in higher mortality and worsened quality of life.