“Silent” heart disease common in older people

	Tweet

A reduction in blood flow to the heart muscle that causes no symptoms, also referred to as “silent myocardial ischemia,” is common among late middle-aged and elderly individuals without apparent Heart disease, Danish researchers report.

Silent myocardial ischemia is quite prevalent among patients with stable or unstable coronary artery disease, the authors point out, but its prevalence and prognostic significance in apparently healthy subjects are not well established.

Dr. Ahmad Sajadieh from Copenhagen University Hospital of Bispebjerg and associates evaluated 678 healthy men and women between 55 and 75 years of age who had no history of cardiovascular disease or Stroke. 

The findings are published in the European Heart Journal.

Seventy-seven participants (11.4 percent) had at least one episode of silent myocardial ischemia, the authors report, and the number of episodes ranged from 1 to 40. Silent myocardial ischemia episodes lasted from 1 to 1170 minutes (on average, 58 minutes).

During an average follow-up of 53 months, in the 77 subjects in the silent myocardial ischemia group, 16 (20.7 percent) died or had a Heart Attack and 8 (10.4 percent) had other cardiac events.

In comparison, 50 (8.3 percent) total and 18 (3.0 percent) cardiac events were recorded in the participants without silent myocardial ischemia. This represents a 3.7-fold increased risk for cardiac events and a 2.7-fold increased risk for total events in patients with silent myocardial ischemia.

Event-free survival was significantly lower for both men and women who had daily silent myocardial ischemia than for those without silent myocardial ischemia, the researchers note. There was no association between the duration of silent myocardial ischemia and rates of cardiac events.

If screening for silent myocardial ischemia in the general population is to be considered, the authors conclude, it might be important to identify groups of subjects with a higher prevalence of silent myocardial ischemia or lower probability of false positives.

SOURCE: European Heart Journal, July 2005.

RELATED STORIES:
Scientists turn skin cells into beating heart muscle   Too many people get angioplasties, study suggests   New Blood Thinner May Lower Chances of Clots in High-Risk Heart Patients: FDA   Heart Damage After Chemo Linked to Stress in Cardiac Cells   What’s good or bad for the heart, may be the same for the brain   Warfarin in Heart Failure   Increased Sudden Cardiac Death Rate Among HIV Patients   Air pollution level changes in Beijing linked with biomarkers of cardiovascular disease   Lack of basic evidence hampering prevention of sudden heart attacks in sport   Blacks Less Likely to Get Help on Scene After Cardiac Arrest: Study   Heart attack patients taken to PCI hospitals first treated faster   Cameron Health’s under-skin ICD safe, effective

Comments

[ + Post Your Own ]

Now you're in the public comment zone. What follows is not Armenian Medical Network's stuff; it comes from other people and we don't vouch for it. A reminder: By using this Web site you agree to accept our Terms of Service. Click here to read the Rules of Engagement.

There are no comments for this entry yet. [ + Comment here + ]