[Drug treatment of patients with heart infarcts before and after the acute stage: results of the Heart Infarct Registry Augsburg].

To assess the changes in medications prescribed before and after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), all surviving patients aged 25-74 years registered from 1985-1988 in the Coronary Event Register Augsburg were evaluated by sex, medical history, and drug use before and after the event. For the 1546 hospitalized patients (1181 men, 365 women) utilization of all drug groups is higher for patients with reinfarction than for patients with first-ever AMI. Before AMI, but not on hospital discharge, women received significantly more medications than men and were more frequently treated with diuretics (30%; men 18%), antihypertensive drugs (15%, men 8%) and cardiac glycosides (20%; men 14%). The most frequently used drug groups are nitrates (before AMI: 30%; after AMI: 80%) and calcium antagonists (before AMI: 26%; after AMI 61%). The four years show a significant increase in patients with reinfarction who were treated with platelet aggregation inhibitors (1985: 9%; 1988: 32%), as well as an increase in AMI patients released from hospital with this medication (1985: 38%; 1988: 64%). A concomitant significant decrease in reinfarction rates for men is found in the course of the four years under study. The results indicate a rapid assimilation of the results of clinical trials in practice down to the substance level.