[The myocardial infarct status of a South German population: results of the Augsburg myocardial infarct register l985].

The Augsburg Myocardial Infarction Register recorded in 1985, 999 coronary events (734 men, 265 women) occurring in 25-74-year-old residents of the city of Augsburg and the counties of Augsburg and Aichach-Friedberg (study population: 156,489 men and 171,093 women). On average, 444 men and 138 women per 100,000 of the population suffered an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in 1985. The risk of morbidity increased with age in both men and women, but gained significance for women only after their 55th year of life. The 28-day case fatality was 54% for male AMI cases and 66% for females; 34% of the AMI patients died without ever reaching a hospital. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was attempted by a physician in one-in-three of these out-of-hospital deaths. Although one of two out-of-hospital deaths occurred in the presence of a medical lay person; lay CPR was the exception. Broader population education in CPR techniques may thus constitute one method of reducing the number of early AMI deaths. The median prehospital time for interviewed hospital patients (66%) was 5 h, and approximately 2 h for patients with systemic thrombolysis (n = 71). The combination of fatal coronary events from the official cause-of-death statistics and the results from the Augsburg register were used to estimate AMI morbidity for the whole of the FRG in 1985. This leads to an expected morbidity of 210,000 AMI, of which 141,000 AMI will be fatal (both sexes).