What Is The Life Expectancy Of A 58 Year Old With Ischemic Cardiomyopathy?
There are different factors that affect the survival rate for a person with a history of myocardial infarction.
Good prognosis is more likely in persons who (1) are given medication earlier in the infarction to get blood flowing back to the heart (2) if the person is given medication such as aspirin, beta blocker medication and ACE medications.These are family of medications that have been shown to improve heart function (3) the person has good left heart function.
There are also a number of different factors that if present can result in a poor prognosis.
One of the most important predictors of outcome would be left heart function. According to the above information, there is 40% heart function and a poor left ejection fraction of 20% (this means when the heart contracts only 20% of the blood in the left side is getting pumped into the aorta which is the blood vessel leading from the heart. Normally this is at least 55%)
A person with a LVEF of less than 40%, according to a recent study, has a 2.5 more chance of death within the first year following the infarction.
In some cases an EF of less than 40% can result in chances of complications within the 6 mth period to be as high as 20% (one in 5 persons with this may experience problems)
LBBB is also, unfortunately a poor indicator though LVEF is thought to give a better idea.
Prognosis is improved by controlling any risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes , high cholesterol or smoking.
As mentioned earlier , there are certain medications that are beneficial.
I hope this helps, feel free to ask any other questions