Temporal Trends in Noncardiovascular Morbidity and Mortality Following Acute Myocardial Infarction

BACKGROUNDDue to improved management, diagnosis, and care of myocardial infarction (MI), patients may now survive long enough to increasingly develop serious noncardiovascular conditions. OBJECTIVESThis study aimed to test this hypothesis by investigating the temporal trends in noncardiovascular morbidity and mortality following MI. METHODSWe conducted a registry-based nationwide cohort study of all Danish patients with MI during 2000 to 2017. Outcomes were cardiovascular and noncardiovascular mortality, incident cancer, incident renal disease, and severe infectious disease. RESULTSFrom 2000 to 2017, 136,293 consecutive patients were identified (63.2% men, median age 69 years). The 1-year risk of cardiovascular mortality between 2000 to 2002 and 2015 to 2017 decreased from 18.4% to 7.6%, whereas noncardiovascular mortality decreased from 5.8% to 5.0%. This corresponded to an increase in the proportion of total 1-year mortality attributed to noncardiovascular causes from 24.1% to 39.5%. Furthermore, increases in 1-year risk of incident cancer (1.9%-2.4%), incident renal disease (1.0%-1.6%), and infectious disease (5.5%-9.1%) were observed (all P trend