Author Description

After rising steadily in western societies since the turn of the century, the rate of coronary heart disease mortality has dropped sharply over the past two decades. Based on a 1986 conference held at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, this book addresses the question of why the number of deaths from heart disease has fallen. The contributors, all leading authorities in the fields of cardiology and epidemiology, review trends and variation in morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease and in the use of clinical procedures in diagnosis, treatment and prevention. They assess the influence of medical care on the disease's prevalence, incidence, mortality, and case fatality rates. The effects of such procedures as antihypersensitive drugs, intravenous thrombolysis, cardiac pacemakers, coronary angioplasty, coronary bypass surgery, cholesterol-lowering agents, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation are examined. No fuller insight into this timely and important medical question is available.