The drastic drop in admissions for acute myocardial infarctions (AMI) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy has seen a parallel rise in MI fatality rates in those who do present to hospitals, according to a new report. This gives credence to suggestions that people have avoided hospitals during the pandemic despite life-threatening emergencies.
Salvatore De Rosa, MD, PhD, and colleagues reported their results in the European Heart Journal.
“These data return a frightening picture of about half of AMI patients not reaching out to the hospital at all, which will probably significantly increase mortality for AMI and bring with it a number of patients with post-MI heart failure, despite the fact that acute coronary syndrome management protocols were promptly implemented,” Dr. De Rosa, of Magna Graecia University in Catanzaro, Italy, and associates wrote.
Hospitalizations down
The study counted AMIs at 54 hospital coronary care units nationwide for the week of March 12-19, 2020, at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy, and compared that with an equivalent week in 2019. The researchers reported 319 AMIs during the week in 2020, compared with 618 in the equivalent 2019 week, a 48% reduction (P < .001). Although the outbreak was worst in northern Italy, the decline in admissions occurred throughout the country.
An analysis of subtype determined the decline in the incidence of ST-segment elevation MI lagged significantly behind that of non-STEMI. STEMI declined from 268 in 2019 to 197 in 2020, a 27% reduction, while hospitalizations for non-STEMI went from 350 to 122, a 65% reduction.
The researchers also found substantial reductions in hospitalizations for heart failure, by 47%, and atrial fibrillation, by 53%. Incidentally, the mean age of atrial fibrillation patients was considerably younger in 2020: 64.6 vs. 70 years.
Death, complications up
AMI patients who managed to get to the hospital during the pandemic also had worse outcomes. Mortality for STEMI cases more than tripled, to 14% during the outbreak, compared with 4% in 2019 (P < .001) and complication rates increased by 80% to 19% (P = .025). Twenty-one STEMI patients were positive for COVID-19 and more than a quarter (29%) died, which was more than two and a half times the 12% death rate in non–COVID-19 STEMI patients.
Analysis of the STEMI group also found that the care gap for women with heart disease worsened significantly during the pandemic, as they comprised 20.3% of cases this year, compared with 25.4% before the pandemic. Also, the reduction in admissions for STEMI during the pandemic was statistically significant at 41% for women, but not for men at 18%.
Non-STEMI patients fared better overall than STEMI patients, but their outcomes also worsened during the pandemic. Non-STEMI patients were significantly less likely to have percutaneous coronary intervention during the pandemic than previously; the rate declined by 13%, from 77% to 66%. The non-STEMI mortality rate nearly doubled, although not statistically significantly, from 1.7% to 3.3%, whereas complication rates actually more than doubled, from 5.1% to 10.7%, a significant difference. Twelve (9.8%) of the non-STEMI patients were COVID-19 positive, but none died.