Deaths by heart attack down in 15 years, say doctors

Chennai: The number of deaths due to heart attacks has come down to less than 10 per cent in the country, compared with 25-30 per cent fatal rate 15 years ago, doctors say.

“Now there is less than 10 per cent loss of life and the chances of survival after suffering a heart attack has increased,” Dr T. Muralidharan, Interventional Cardiologist and Electrophysiologist at Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute said.

According to data published in Journal of Association of Physician in India (JAPI), the death rate due to heart attacks is 8.6 per cent in India. “Though the number of cardio-vascular related diseases are increasing at an alarming pace, it is a good sign that deaths related to heart attack is coming down,” he said.

Doctors at the Electrophysilogy Council Of India (EPIC) has attributed the reduction to effective treatment and diagnosis and greater awareness about cardio-vascular related disorders among the public.

“This is mainly due to the advance improvement in techniques like electrophysiology and radio frequency ablation,” a doctor said. Dr Muralidharan also said that radio frequency ablation will help reduce deaths due to cardio-vascular diseases.

“By setting up an organised electric circuit through a person’s heart, we will be able to determine whether the heart beat is normal (72 per minute) or not. If we detect that there is an abnormal rhythm, then it indicates signs of arrhythmia. Radio frequency ablation will come to use here where we can remove the affected region alone from the heart without disturbing the other regions around it.”

Dr C. Narasimhan, Electrophysiologist based in Hyderabad, says it is possible to bring down the attack rates by deeply observing the family patterns of a person, who has been affected. He said that occurrence of attacks to siblings of the patient can be countered through such observations.   

Commenting on this Dr Muralidharan said, “Severe analysis must be done on a patient whose family has a history of any form of cardio-vascular diseases.  The occurrence of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which leads to sudden cardiac death among young people as well as the old, is high among such people who will have to be closely monitored from the beginning. By administering proper treatment at the right time, the survival rate of people affected due to genetic inheritance has come up from 0 to 65 per cent,” he said.