Trends in long-term prognosis after acute coronary syndrome

BackgroundCoronary heart disease incidence, mortality and short-term case-fatality have improved substantially during the past decades. Recent changes in the long-term prognosis among survivors of acute coronary syndrome are less well known. Our aim was to investigate the long-term prognosis of acute coronary syndrome.DesignAn observational myocardial infarction register study.MethodsData was derived from the population based Finnish Myocardial Infarction register. Patients aged 35 or higher, who had their first acute coronary syndrome during 1993–2011 and survived the first 28 days, were included in the analysis (n = 13,336). Endpoints were fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease events and all-cause mortality at one year and three years after the index event. We also compared the prognosis of acute coronary syndrome survivors with the prognosis of an apparently healthy population with the same age, sex and area of residence, derived from the FINRISK study.ResultsSignificant declines over time were ob...