Retrospective study was based on analysis of 881 patients treated in our ward in 1992-1996. Their fate was estimated through 2-6 years after the past myocardial infarction (MI). There were among of them 147 (16.7%) with second and 20 (2.3%) with third or next MI. Then we compared in-hospital course and long-term prognosis in patients with recurrent MI (group I, n = 167) to patients with the first MI (group II, n = 714). We have also evaluated influence of the time-period between the both episodes of myocardial infarctions on the prognosis. The chi-square test was applied to identify the significance of the difference between both groups. Using the Kaplan-Meier method, figures of survival curves were created. Patients in group I were about 4.9 year-older than in group II/(median age was 64.8 +/- 10.7 vs 59.9 +/- +/- 11.3 years p < 0.05). More popular were also diabetes (30.5% vs 18.5%, p < 0.001), advanced hypertension (31.7% vs 20.5% p < 0.01) and higher ratio of current smokers (51.5%) among risk factors in patients from group I. Second myocardial infarction had more serious in-hospital course than the first one. It could be the result of anterior location and more often cardiac complications like ventricular arrhythmias including VF, disturbances of intraventricular conductions, cardiogenic shock and pulmonary oedema with especially of first hours of acute myocardial infarction. Mortality rate in the group I was 2.2 times higher to compare with group II (24.0% vs 10.9%, p < 0.001). Significance higher mortality was in the first year of follow-up and among patients with recurrent myocardial infarction within 12 months after the first one.
Conclusion: Previous myocardial infarction is significant risk factor that elevate in-hospital course and long-term mortality rate. We observed the higher mortality rate when the recurrent myocardial infarction occurred within 12 months after the first one. The longer time-period since the first myocardial infarction the better prognosis was observed in our analysis.