Cases of stroke complicating heart attack down

"While the incidence of stroke as a complication of heart attack has decreased since the late 1990s, death during hospitalization in affected patients has not shown a corresponding decrease, new data suggest. 'Although contemporary therapies may be reducing the risk of stroke in patients with (heart attack), more attention should be directed to improving the short-term prognosis of these high-risk patients,' conclude Dr. Jane S. Saczynski, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, and colleagues in the Archives of Internal Medicine. In looking at data on 9,220 patients hospitalized for heart attack between 1986 and 2005, Saczynski's team found that 132 patients (1.4 percent) suffered a first acute stroke during hospitalization. The frequency of stroke increased through the 1990s, peaked in 1999, and declined slightly thereafter, the researchers found" - Reuters