Investigation of short-term prognosis of fragmented QRS complexes in patients with acute myocardial infarction in two groups that received invasive and fibrinolytic therapy

BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that the primary causes of death in patients with acute coronary syndrome are arrhythmias and heart failure. The aim of this study is to evaluate the short-term prognosis of fragmented QRS (f-QRS) in patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI). METHODS: This study was a prospective and longitudinal analytic study performed on all patients with acute MI admitted to Rasht Heshmat Hospital Emergency during 2018–2019. Serial Electrocardiography (ECG) was performed in the emergency room after patient admission and was repeated 24 h after percutaneous coronary intervention and fibrinolytic therapy, as well as at the time of patient discharge. Short-term prognosis of f-QRS in patients was evaluated by a cardiologist within admission, 40 days after hospitalization and three months later again. RESULTS: In this study, 453 patients with MI were evaluated in two treatment methods of fibrinolytic and invasive with and without f-QRS. Based on the data of this study, the four study groups had no statistically significant difference in arrhythmia (p = 0.196). In addition, the effect of study groups on left ventricular ejection fraction index was not statistically significant (p = 0.597). The probability of adverse outcomes occurrence was not statistically significant among the four groups (p = 0.07). CONCLUSION: The final results of this study showed that there was no significant difference between the four study groups and arrhythmia status. Therefore, f-QRS was not introduced as an independent predictor of arrhythmia in patients with acute MI.