[The life expectancy after cardial infarct regarding the social-insurance company (author's transl)].

German insurance statistics indicate that the age for admission to disablement benefit after myocardial infarct has not increased during the past ten years, which means that there has been no improvement. From among the pensioners in the workers' annuity insurance (Rheinprovinz) as many as 63.0% survived the 7 years' observation period in the case of anterior and 80.1% in the case of posterior wall infarction. While in respect of posterior wall infarction the age dependence has been less distinct, the survival rate reduced by 86.7% in case of male patients younger than 40 years to 49.4% in case of patients of 60 years and over. Minor differences only have been found to exist in respect of females. Regarding the deceased, it has been discovered that also the mean survival rate in years strongly depended on infarct locality, i.e. anterior or posterior wall. Disability benefit used to be granted already on the average 2 years after infarction which means that applications were already filed in the year when the infarct occurred or in the year thereafter. This gives rise to the conclusion that there are too many doctors to whom a myocardial infarction diagnosis creates the impression that the majority of patients will never be able to undertake any kind of professional activity again.