Post-MI patients fare better in United States

Patients who have had a myocardial infarction (MI) who develop cardiogenic shock are more likely to survive if they are treated in the United States than in other countries, a study from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, indicates.

In evaluating data from the Global Utilization of Streptokinase and Tissue Plasminogen Activator for Occluded Coronary Arteries (GUSTO) a large, international trial of thrombolytic agents the researchers found that in more than 40,000 patients, both 30-day and one-year mortality rates were significantly lower for patients treated in the United States than in other countries. However, U.S. physicians were more likely to use aggressive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures such as cardiac catheterization than their colleagues in other countries.