Clinical and Angiographic Characteristics of Exertion-Related Acute Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

Epidemiological studies have documented that habitual physical activity reduces the population incidence of coronary heart disease, including myocardial infarction (MI) and cardiac death.¹ On the other hand, vigorous physical activity can also acutely and transiently increase the risk of both of these cardiac events.^2-5 Between 4% and 15% of MIs occur during or soon after vigorous exertion,⁶ making exertion one of the most common triggers of acute MI. Such events appear more frequent in patients with diabetes and habitually sedentary individuals,² but little else is known about who develops an exertion-related cardiac event. Most studies of exertion-related sudden death cannot develop a clinical picture of the victims because of small sample sizes.^4,5,7 The current study compared the clinical characteristics of patients who experienced an exertion-related MI with those who experienced MI not related to exertion.