EARLY DISCHARGE AFTER UNCOMPLICATED ACUTE MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION

Introduction and objectives. The length of hospital stay for uncomplic ated myocardial infarction is still a debatable issue. Our study tries to establish the rate of patients amenable early discharged and the s afety of this practice. Patients and methods. We studied retrospective ly the clinical features, in-hospital events and 30-day follow up of 2 38 patients discharged early (5 or 6 days) during the last three years . These patients were compared with the remaining group of 929 patient s discharged after a conventional stay (mean 10.4 days) in the same ti me frame. Results. The mean hospital stay in the early discharged grou p was 5.4 days. They had no ischemic, arrhythmic or haemodynamic compl ications in the acute phase. In the 30-day follow up there was only on e death (at the 14 th post-myocardial infarction day) and 17 readmissi ons to the hospital, none with re-infarction. By contrast, there were 14 deaths and 43 readmissions among the patients with the standard sta y at the hospital. Conclusions. At least 20%, of patients with uncompl icated myocardial infarction can be discharged early. This practice se ems to be safe in low risk groups, and is not associated with a higher rate of complications when compared with longer hospital stays.