Nov. 16--In a study suggesting that many heart patients are not getting the care they need, University of Minnesota researchers have found that only about 10 percent of first-time heart attack patients at a Minneapolis hospital had received commonly recommended preventive treatments.
Dr. Jay Cohn, a university cardiologist who led the study, said that up to 90 percent of those heart attacks could potentially be prevented with the proper screenings and medications.
Cohn and his colleagues studied 815 first-time heart attack patients at Abbott Northwestern Hospital between 2007 and 2010.
They found that fewer than one in ten were taking drugs to lower cholesterol, reduce blood pressure or prevent clots, the most common preventive treatments.
"These drugs have all been shown to reduce the risk of heart attack, but it's clear that not enough patients are taking them," said Cohn.
"If we could have gotten these individuals on proper medication, I'm confident that the majority of these first-time heart attacks wouldn't have happened."
Heart disease is the nation's leading killer, and more than a million Americans suffer heart attacks every year.
Cohn said this study did not show why such a small fraction of patients were getting screenings and recommended preventive care before their heart attacks.
But, he noted, the majority of heart attacks occur in people with seemingly normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, according to previous studies.
"These heart attacks are occurring in people who would not normally be treated," he said.
However, Cohn said doctors can identify who is at risk "with considerable precision" by using tests that examine the function and health of the arteries.
Those kinds of tests are conducted at the university's Rasmussen Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention for about $1,800 a person, he said.
He said that, given the effectiveness of the drugs, many heart attacks could be prevented or delayed. "We don't know what fraction could be prevented," he said, but "we know the potential is there."
At the same time, 10 percent of the patients in the study suffered a first heart attack in spite of taking the drugs.
"So we know they're not 100 percent effective," Cohn said.
The researchers also found that even among patients with a history of heart attacks, only 30 to 50 percent were taking the medications when they had a recurrence.
The study was presented Monday at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago.
Maura Lerner --612-673-7384
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