Influence of atmospheric states in semi-arid areas on hospital admission in cardio-surgical department.

The influence of the changes in atmospheric state, typical for areas close to big deserts, on acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was analyzed. Under test was the group of 3256 patients (77 % males, 23 % females), hospitalized in the Cardio-Surgical Department of Soroka Medical Center at Ben-Gurion University (BGU, Israel) during 2000-2008. To explore the relationship between atmospheric parameters and AMI, multivariate regression analysis has been performed. AMI was most frequent in winter to spring and least in summer. The highest number of cases was recorded in December and the lowest in September. Hospital admissions showed a higher prevalence in men than in women; the ratio is 3.3/1.0. About 60 % of males were aged between 45 and 65 years old with maximum ∼55 (21 %), whereas 60 % of women hospital admissions were aged between 65 and 80 years old with maximum ∼72 (24 %). The result suggested that the monthly mean relative humidity at daytime and its overall daily differences, wind speed, and respirable fraction of particulate concentration are associated with the admission for AMI. The results of the study confirm the importance of atmospheric state variability for cardiovascular diseases.