Mini heart attack best treated like the big one
Patients admitted to hospitals with mild symptoms may benefit from getting to a catheterization lab promptly
By Nathan Seppa
NEW ORLEANS — People who show up at a hospital with mild heart attack symptoms, but only ambiguous scores on medical tests, might still warrant emergency treatment, according to research presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association.
The new study, reported November 10 at the AHA’s annual Scientific Sessions meeting, suggests that getting some of these marginal patients into a heart catheterization lab within 24 hours causes no harm and sharply lessens their risk of having the problem recur over the following six months.
People with chest pains arriving in an emergency room get attention right away — for good reason. After ruling out those who are having acid reflux pain or an anxiety attack, doctors use an electrocardiogram (EKG) to assess the person’s heart function and a blood analysis to reveal any damage to the heart muscle.
These simple tests, coupled with obvious signs of distress, are often enough to diagnose a person suffering from a heart attack. Those patients are wheeled into a catheterization lab, where doctors thread a line from a leg artery up to the patient’s heart to open the coronary artery blockage that is causing the heart attack.