Objectives:

to identify the clinical and paraclinical behavior of myocardial infarctions in an intensive care unit of a medium-size city during 2017.

Methods:

a descriptive, cross-sectional study which included 99 medical records with a diagnosis of myocardial infarction on ICU discharge. The variables were described and analysis of variance and Chi2tests were performed, using a p-value less than 0.05 for statistically significant differences.

Results:

the prevalence of myocardial infarction in the ICU was 11.8%. The average age was 66.8 years. Chest pain was present in 82.8% with an average duration of 335 minutes. The pain most often radiated to the left arm (13.1%). Non-ST segment elevation myocardial infarction was the most frequent (50.5%), and the electrocardiogram located the infarctions on the inferior surface in 28.2%. The average ultrasensitive troponin I was 28.2 ng/mL. A total of 54.5% had complications. Mortality was 14.1%. Hospital stay was 6.5 and critical care stay was three days. There was a statistically significant relationship between chest pain and ST segment elevation (p<0.001) and between troponin I plus hospital stay and ST segment elevation (p=0.007 and p=0.003, respectively).

Conclusion:

the study showed that 11.8% of patients admitted to ICU are admitted for myocardial infarction, and there is a statistically significant relationship between chest pain and an elevated ST segment and between increased troponin I plus a longer hospital stay and ST segment elevation. (Acta Med Colomb 2020; 45. DOI:https://doi.org/10.36104/amc.2020.1498).

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