Germany

GOOD QUALITY OF CARE TREATING MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION

Prof. Uwe Zeymer, Vice Chairman of Stiftung IHF and Congress President of the German Cardiac Society’s autumn conference, presented results of the German Myocardial Infarction Registry. The most important finding of the project was that in-hospital mortality for acute myocardial infarctions with ECG changes (ST-segment elevation) has dropped to 7%.

In comparable projects of the mid-1990s, the mortality rate was 16%. This improvement may be attributed to the fact that 90% of all patients are now treated with balloon dilatation to open up their blocked vessel, which means they receive optimum therapy. Each year, about 100,000 individuals experience such infarctions in Germany alone.

5 YEARS OF CATHETER-BASED AORTIC VALVE REPLACEMENT

In the 6 months to come, Stiftung IHF will be scientifically investigating the development in health status and quality of life of patients having undergone catheter-based aortic valve replacement 5 years ago to receive an artificial valve. About 1,500 patients from the German TAVI registry – having been treated with this innovative technique as the first patients between 2008 and 2010 – will be contacted by phone and interviewed. It will be investigated which patients benefit most from this procedure and which ones have less or no benefit at all from the implant. This project is partly funded by the Deutsche Herzstiftung (German Heart Foundation).