Deaths from ischemic heart disease in persons aged 65 or younger in Helsinki in 1970 with special reference to patho-anatomic findings in hearts.?211.

Deaths from ischemic heart disease(IHD) occurring during a period of one year in Helsinki in persons aged 65 years or younger have been investigated by the Ischaemic Heart Disease Register. Altogether 526 fatalities were registered. Autopsy data were collected in 432 cases, the autopsy rate being 82 percent. The results are presented separately for persons autopsied in the pathologic departments, representing mostly delayed deaths in hospitals, and for medico-legally autopsied persons representing sudden deaths outside hospitals. The diagnosis of IHD death was either based on the positive patho-anatomic or clinical evidence of an acute heart attack or supported by a history of clinical IHD in 92 percent of all registered fatal cases. In the remaining fatalities the possibility of other causes of death had been more or less definitely excluced. All persons with an acute attack of IHD and all autopsied cases showed a division into four socio-economic groups very similar to that of the population of Helsinki. Men belonging to the lowest social group were over-represented among medico-legally autopsied cases. A history of a previous heart disease, visits to a doctor and the use of digitalis were less common in persons autopsied medico-legally than in those autopsied in the pathologic departments. In the former an acute infarction was most often located in the posterior wall and in the latter in the anterior wall of the left ventricle. The prevalence of an occlusion was highest in the right coronary artery in the former and in the left anterior descending coronary artery in the latter; In medico-legally autopsied cases in which a recent myocardial infarction was observed the interventricular septum was involved in 81 percent, but in cases with an old infarction the septum was involved in only 52 percent. No difference in the size of the hearts, the frequency of an old infarction or the prevalence of coronary occlusions was found between persons autopsied in the pathologic and forensic departments. Although a previous angina was about equally common in both sexes, old infarctions were more common in men. The increase in heart weight had occurred proportionally to the same extent in both sexes.