Improved mortality after STEMI over two decades.

Results A total of 335 patients in 1986, 351 in 1996 and 178 patients in 2006 comprise the total study population of 864 STEMI patients. In addition 25 (6,9%) patients died within the first 24 hours of hospital admission in 1986, 33(15,6%) in 1996 and 5 (2,7%) in 2006. One-year mortality decreased from 26.3% in 1986 and 19.7% in 1996 to 12.9% in 2006 (p = 0.001). Cox proportional hazard analysis showed aspirin (HR 0.29), the use of reperfusion therapy (HR 0.51) and beta blockers at hospital discharge (HR 0.53) to be the strongest factors to explain the mortality reduction while the use of diuretics (HR 1.42) and age (HR 1.06) were related to increased one year mortality.