Improvements in Long-Term Mortality After Myocardial Infarction and Increased Use of Cardiovascular Drugs After Discharge

• Published in: Journal of the American College of Cardiology 2008-04, Vol.51 (13), p.1247-1254
• Main Authors: Setoguchi, Soko, MD, DrPH, Glynn, Robert J., PhD, ScD, Avorn, Jerry, MD, Mittleman, Murray A., MD, DrPH, Levin, Raisa, MS, Winkelmayer, Wolfgang C., MD, ScD
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cardiovascular; Internal Medicine
• ISSN: 0735-1097; 1558-3597
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2007.10.063

Improvements in Long-Term Mortality After Myocardial Infarction and Increased Use of Cardiovascular Drugs After Discharge: A 10-Year Trend Analysis Soko Setoguchi, Robert J. Glynn, Jerry Avorn, Murray A. Mittleman, Raisa Levin, Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer The use of recommended cardiovascular medications after myocardial infarction (MI) has increased during the past decade. Little is known whether the increasing use of drugs contributed to the improvements in MI prognosis. Using data from Medicare and pharmacy programs in 2 states, we assessed trends in the mortality and the contribution to increasing medication use after MI in multivariate models. Among 21,484 MI patients, mortality decreased significantly with a 3% reduction in each year (1995 to 2004). Adjusting for the use of cardiovascular medications completely eliminated the mortality trend, suggesting that the mortality improvement is mainly due to increased use of these medications.