[In-hospital and long-term prognosis in acute myocardial infarction. Comparative longitudinal study of 2 patient groups].

The in-hospital mortality, the causes of death, the actuarial survival curves were compared in two subsequent groups of patients admitted to our CCU for acute myocardial infarction: the first (group A) includes 791 pts, admitted from september '67 to december '72, the second (group B) includes 542 pts admitted from january '78 to june '80. The in-hospital mortality was significantly reduced in group B (A: 186/791, 23.5%; B: 72/542, 13,3%, p less than 0.01). This could be due to a reduction of the number of deaths for cardiogenic shock (A: 71/791, 9%; B: 30/542, 5.6%; p less than 0.01) and to reduction in the mortality rate for pulmonary oedema (from 6% to 1.5%, p less than 0.01), although the frequency of pulmonary oedema was the same during the two periods (A: 205 pts, 26%; B/156 pts 29%). We did not observe any significant difference in the long-term prognosis (54 months: A 79.3%, B 71.5%). The actuarial survival curves overlapped after the 1st semester after discharge. The most frequent cause of death during follow-up was a new myocardial infarction. None in the group A and only 3% in the group B were referred to the surgeon for coronary artery bypass grafting. We conclude that, in spite of a significant reduction of the in-hospital mortality, possibly related to the evolution in diagnosis and management of the disease, the long-term survival was not improved in a non-surgically treated population with myocardial infarction.