We evaluated ACS patients who were enrolled in the second Gulf Registry of Acute Coronary Events (Gulf RACE-2).
Out of 7930 ACS patients, 172 (2.2 % ) developed recurrent myocardial infarction (Re-MI) during their hospitalization. Patients with Re-MI were more likely to be older (mean age 59.12 ¡À 13.5 vs. 56.8 ¡À 12.4; P = 0.016), had higher rates of hyperlipidemia (41.3 % vs. 32.6 % ; P = 0.027) and previous angina (47.7 % vs. 37.9 % ; P = 0.006), presented more with STEMI (72.1 % vs. 43.9 % ; P < 0.001), and had more Killip class 4 upon admission (8.1 % vs. 3.2 % ; P < 0.001) than patients without Re-MI. Management-wise, Re-MI patients received less aspirin (94.8 % vs. 98.5 % ; P = 0.002), beta-blockers (59.3 % vs. 74.7 % ; P < 0.001), and statin (87.2 % vs. 94.9 % ; P < 0.001), and were less frequently assessed by coronary angiogram (30.8 % vs. 32.5 % ; P = 0.036). These patients had more in-hospital complications including congestive heart failure (44.2 % vs. 12.4 % ) and cardiogenic shock (25.6 % vs. 5.3 % ) as well as higher mortality rates; both during hospitalization (23.8 % vs. 4.1 % ) and after a discharge period of 30 days (27.3 % vs. 6.87 % ) and 1 year (29.1 % vs. 9.3 % ). P < 0.001 for all comparisons.
Patients with recurrent infarction have a bad prognosis in terms of in-hospital complications and high mortality rates. High risk patients need to be monitored and managed differently to prevent secondary attacks.