Abstract
The chance of surviving an acute myocardial infarction (MI) has increased greatly but many persons still die as a consequence of MI. We assessed the familiality of suffering fatal MI using Swedish registry data. All 4,239 sib-pairs (n = 8,478) where both siblings had suffered an MI and who were born 1932 or later were identified by matching the Swedish National Patient-, Cause of Death and Multi-Generation registries. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the association between survival times between sibling who had, or not had, a sibling who died within 28 days of their first MI. The risk estimate was adjusted for year of infarction, age at infarction, sex and county for both siblings. The mortality rate was increased the first 28 days after infarction amongst patients who had a sibling who also died within 28 days of infarction (adjusted Hazard ratio (HR) [95 % confidence interval [95 % CI]: 1.44 [1.18–1.75]). These patients also have a worse long-term survival (adjusted HR [95 % CI]: 1.65 [1.24–2.21]). There appears to be familial effects that influence MI survival. This may have important implications for MI prevention strategies but further studies are required to determine if these effects are due to genetic or environmental factors.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Wilhelmsen L, Rosengren A, Lappas G. Relative importance of improved hospital treatment and primary prevention. Results from 20 years of the Myocardial Infarction Register, Goteborg, Sweden. J Intern Med. 1999;245(2):185–91.
Open comparison and assessment 2009-Cardiac care. Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden. 2010. http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/publikationer2010/2010-9-2 Accessed 1 June 2012.
Marenberg ME, Risch N, Berkman LF, Floderus B, de Faire U. Genetic susceptibility to death from coronary heart disease in a study of twins. New Eng J Med. 1994;330(15):1041–6.
Zdravkovic S, Wienke A, Pedersen NL, Marenberg ME, Yashin AI, De Faire U. Heritability of death from coronary heart disease: a 36-year follow-up of 20 966 Swedish twins. J Intern Med. 2002;252(3):247–54.
Piccini JP, Zhang M, Pieper K, Solomon SD, Al-Khatib SM, Van de Werf F, et al. Predictors of sudden cardiac death change with time after myocardial infarction: results from the VALIANT trial. Eur Heart J. 2010;31(2):211–21.
Walldius G, Jungner I, Holme I, Aastveit AH, Kolar W, Steiner E. High apolipoprotein B, low apolipoprotein A-I, and improvement in the prediction of fatal myocardial infarction (AMORIS study): a prospective study. Lancet. 2001;358(9298):2026–33.
Grundtvig M, Hagen TP, Amrud ES, Reikvam A. Mortality after myocardial infarction: impact of gender and smoking status. Eur J Epidemiol. 2011;26:385–93.
Nilsson SE, Read S, Berg S, Johansson B. Heritabilities for fifteen routine biochemical values: findings in 215 Swedish twin pairs 82 years of age or older. Scand J Clin Laby Invest. 2009;69(5):562–9.
Bathum L, Fagnani C, Christiansen L, Christensen K. Heritability of biochemical kidney markers and relation to survival in the elderly–results from a Danish population-based twin study. Clin Chim Acta. 2004;349(1–2):143–50.
Rahman I, Bennet AM, Pedersen NL, de Faire U, Svensson P, Magnusson PK. Genetic dominance influences blood biomarker levels in a sample of 12,000 Swedish elderly twins. Twin Res Hum Gen. 2009;12(3):286–94.
Lessov-Schlaggar CN, Pang Z, Swan GE, Guo Q, Wang S, Cao W, et al. Heritability of cigarette smoking and alcohol use in Chinese male twins: the Qingdao twin registry. Int J Epidemiol. 2006;35(5):1278–85.
Kupper NH, Willemsen G, van den Berg M, de Boer D, Posthuma D, Boomsma DI, et al. Heritability of ambulatory heart rate variability. Circulation. 2004;110(18):2792–6.
Fischer M, Broeckel U, Holmer S, Baessler A, Hengstenberg C, Mayer B, et al. Distinct heritable patterns of angiographic coronary artery disease in families with myocardial infarction. Circulation. 2005;111(7):855–62.
Fischer M, Mayer B, Baessler A, Riegger G, Erdmann J, Hengstenberg C, et al. Familial aggregation of left main coronary artery disease and future risk of coronary events in asymptomatic siblings of affected patients. Eur Heart J. 2007;28(20):2432–7.
Värdering av diagnoskvaliteten för akut hjärtinfarkt i patientregistret 1987 och 1995. Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden. 2000. http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/publikationer2000/2000-0-100 Accessed 30 May 2012.
Multi-generation register 2010, a description of contents and quality. Statistics Sweden, Stockholm, Sweden. 2011. http://www.scb.se/statistik/_publikationer/BE9999_2011A01_BR_BE96BR1101.pdf. Accessed 1 June 2012.
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by grants from Karolinska Institutet Foundations and Hans Loo Ostermans Foundation.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ekberg, S., Ploner, A., de Faire, U. et al. Familial effects on survival after myocardial infarction: a registry-based sib-pair study. Eur J Epidemiol 27, 911–914 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-012-9741-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-012-9741-3