Considerable Portion of Heart Attack Patients Still Deprived
The exponential increase in the spectrum of medical science in the globe has led to introduction of several sophisticated technologies which was beyond the purview of the highly acclaimed medical institutions even some years back. In this respect, according to a new study it has come to the fore that in the contemporary age the heart attack patients do receive emergency angioplasty treatment or clot-busting drugs to re-open their clogged heart arteries at ease when compared to a decade ago. However the same report has also stated that10 percent of patients who could benefit from this urgent treatment meant for saving lives and also preventing the last damage to the heart muscle do not get it all. In addition it has also been ascertained that the majority of the patients who remain deprived of the lifesaving emergency treatment include those whose heart attack symptoms are not diagnosed with the emblematic symptoms like chest pain, or the unfortunate ones who do not reach the hospital until six or more hours after the start of their attack, women, people over age 75, and also the non-white people.
It is to be noted that the entire initiative has been taken by the prominent cardiologists belonging to the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center and the Yale University School of Medicine. The entire team conducted an extensive study in the basis of data from 238,291 patients who had a type of heart attack between 1994 and 2003 for which this therapy is appropriate. In a detailed analysis as a part of the ten-year study period it has been identified that percentage of patients who could have received emergency reperfusion but didn't declined from more than 20 percent to 10 percent. This has been regarded as a notable achievement resulting from the escalating evidence of the benefit of emergency angioplasty along with the augmentation in the accessibility of the treatment at American hospitals and concerted national efforts for the general improvement of care.
While being asked to comment Dr. Brahmajee Nallamothu, M.D ., MPH, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at the U-M Medical School said, "We may never be able to get to 100 percent, but 10 percent of eligible patients going untreated is still too many. We hope our study highlights the opportunities to improve care and particularly some of the "at-risk" subgroups still less likely to receive reperfusion therapy despite eligibility, so that we can focus our clinical efforts on them."
