Observational Study of Chinese Medicine Syndrome Distribution in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction and Its Impact on Prognosis

Objective: To investigate the distribution of Chinese medicine (CM) syndrome in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) on admission and its impact on prognosis. Methods: A total of 525 AMI patients were prospectively recruited and classified into 4 groups based on their clinical characteristics: excess-heat, excess-cold, deficiency-heat and deficiency-cold syndromes. Major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) were followed up. Results: The excess syndrome was more common than deficiency syndrome (72.95% vs. 27.05%; P<0.05). Totally 495 (94.29%) of 525 AMI patients were followed up (median 277 days). There were 59 (11.92%) MACEs. After adjusted with confounding factors in Cox regression models, the hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) of excess-heat, excess-cold, deficiency-heat and deficiency-cold syndrome groups were 1, 1.25 (0.63, 2.49; P<0.05), 2.37 (1.14, 4.94; P<0.05), 3.76 (1.71, 8.28; P<0.05), respectively. Conclusions: Excess syndrome was more common in AMI patients and had better prognosis, while deficiency-cold syndrome had the poorest prognosis. CM syndrome was of value in predicting long-term outcomes in AMI patients.