Heart Patients’ Serious Complications Increase amid Epidemic

From Jiji Press

February 10 2021

OSAKA – Delayed visits to hospitals due to the coronavirus crisis have boosted the number of heart infarction patients developing serious complications fourfold, according to a team of Japanese researchers. 

Researchers mainly of the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, compared data on 359 heart infarction patients hospitalized before Japan’s first COVID-19 state of emergency was declared in April last year with 63 patients hospitalized after the declaration.

The comparison found that patients took more time to see a doctor, said the team, whose study was published on the British online journal Open Heart.

The proportion of patients who visited a hospital more than 24 hours after the onset of symptoms grew 1.8-fold after the emergency declaration. Catheter-based treatment becomes ineffective 24 hours after the onset.

After the declaration, it took 4.1 hours on average for a patient to see a doctor from the start of symptoms, compared with 2.4 hours before the declaration.