Myocardial Infarction Registry in Asturias: the RIMAS project

Spanish hospital registers of myocardial infarction (MI) are not uniform. The RIMAS project is trying to know the real situation of myocardial infarction in Asturias and to observe possible differences among hospitals and with other registers. It was a cohorts study using a hospital registry of patients with MI. All cases arriving alive to all public and private-public Asturian hospitals during 1998 were included. Demographic data, cardiovascular risk factors, delays, evolution, treatments and techniques used, were all registered. 875 cases were registered with a coverage rate of 77%. The average age was 66.5 years (45.6% older than 70 years) and women represented 29.1%. Sixty three per cent of the patients had tobacco consumption, 43% had arterial hypertension, and 22.3% were diabetics. The extrahospital delay was 135 min and thrombolysis delay was 180 min. Thrombolytic therapy was administered to 34.1% of patients and 4% were treated with primary angioplasty. Intrahospital mortality was 14.4%. At discharge, antiagregant therapy was administrated to 94%, betablockers to 43.2%, ACE inhibitors to 33.3% and hypolipemiants to 25% of treated patients. People attended in Asturias with a MI are older and there is a higher percentage of women. There are delays which include the start of thrombolytic therapy. However, there are significant differences with regard to the adhesion to clinical practice guidelines between different hospitals.