Routine medical checks could be missing two-thirds of heart attacks

A study funded by the NHLBI and presented at the CMR 2018 in Barcelona, Spain, found that standard medical tests miss nearly two-thirds of heart attack diagnoses. “That means 63% (156 out of 247) of the myocardial infarctions identified by cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) were missed in routine medical care,” said lead author Dr. Tushar Acharya, a cardiologist at NHLBI. “Unrecognized MI may be more common than recognized MI.” However, the researcher emphasized, ‘unrecognized’ and ‘recognized’ heart attacks have the same long-term risk of death.