Mortality in simple myocardial infraction or acute myocardial infarction (AMI), commonly known as a heart attack, used to be 30 per cent about 30 years ago, but has come down to 2 per cent now, as a variety of options are available for treating such patients said Newark Beth Israel Medical Centre Chief Cardiologist Mark Cohen.
During an interaction with doctors in Vijayawada on Monday, he said that the average delay in bringing patients to hospital in the United States was two hours and this needs to be brought down. Ramesh Hospital Chief Cardiologist P. Ramesh Babu during the interaction said that the delay in bringing patients to the hospitals in South India was 10 hours.
Dr. Cohen opined that the delay was mostly not out of ignorance, but due to people refusing to accept that they had the symptoms of heart attack and lost valuable time in the golden hour. While different kinds of drugs were one of the options to treat the condition, it was not the focus now as a number of devices also were available to open up arteries and remove blocks.
Working on research in blood coagulation and thrombus formation, he said that depending only on giving medicines through IV fluids should not be the sole option, but precious time could be gained if it was possible to administer orally.
Talking to The Hindu on Monday, Dr. Cohen said that the latest medicines and devices were available in India and some good work was being done and his visit was only to share some experiences with the doctors here. He also gave a talk on clinical pharmacology and anti-platelet drugs.
Extraction catheters were very handy now a days to remove the blocks rather than trying to dissolve them as that was time taking process.
