Data show 5000 fewer hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome during pandemic

Around 5000 fewer people were admitted to hospitals in England for acute coronary syndrome than expected from January to the end of May this year, an analysis has shown. The results, published in the Lancet, indicate that many patients have missed out on lifesaving treatments during the COVID-19 outbreak.

This decline started before the UK lockdown began on 23 March and “was qualitatively similar throughout the country, with only minor variations … in different demographic groups,” the authors wrote.

Among patients admitted to hospital with acute myocardial infarction there was a “sustained increase in the proportion ... receiving [a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute myocardial infarction] on the day of admission and a continued reduction in the median length of stay,” they added.

“The reduced number of admissions … is likely to have resulted in increases in out-of-hospital deaths and long-term complications of myocardial infarction and missed opportunities to offer secondary prevention treatment for patients with coronary heart disease,” they concluded.

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Source: BMJ, 15 July 2020