Short- and Long-term Clinical Outcome After Q Wave and Non-Q Wave Myocardial Infarction in a Large Patient Population*

Prognosis for patients with non-Q wave myocardial infarction is controversial although a number of studies have shown a less favorable outlook after hospital discharge for patients with non-Q wave than for those with Q wave infarction. Therefore, the in-hospital and 1-year prognosis was investigated in a sufficiently large patient population (n =2,024) to allow stratifi-cation by subgroups, in particular by age and previous myocardial infarction. Patients with non-Q wave infarction (n =444; 22 % of the total study population) were somewhat older (65 vs. 63 years, p <0.001) and had an increased incidence of previous myocardial infarction (46 % vs. 24%, p <0.001) and congestive heart failure (21 % vs. 8%, p <0.001) than patients with Q wave infarction. In-hospital mortality of patients with non-Q wave infarction was lower (8.1 % vs. 11.5%; p <0.06), whereas theirl-year mortality after hospital discharge was significantly higher (13.7 % vs. 9.2%,p <0.05) than for patients with Q wave infarction. However, total mortalities at 1 year were nearly equal. When patients were subgrouped by presence or absence of a previous myocardial infarction, patients in both subgroups exhibited mortality patterns typical of the entire population with Q wave or non-Q wave infarction. However, when stratified by age and previous infarction, in-hospital mortality for patients with non-Q wave infarction was signifi