Disparities of demographics, clinical characteristics, and hospital outcomes of AMI pilgrims vs non-pilgrims—tertiary center experience

BACKGROUND: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is usually caused by rupture of an atherosclerotic plaque leading to thrombotic occlusion of a coronary artery. Cardiovascular disease has recently emerged as the leading cause of death during hajj. Our aim is to demonstrate the AMI pilgrim’s related disparities and comparing them to non-pilgrim patients. RESULT: Out of 3044 of patients presented with AMI from January 2016 to August 2019, 1008 (33%) were pilgrims. They were older in age (P < 0.001) and showed significantly lower rates cardiovascular risk factors (P < 0.001 for DM, smoking, and obesity). Pilgrims were also less likely to receive thrombolytic therapy (P < 0.001), show lower rate of late AMI presentation (P < 0.001), develop more LV dysfunction post AMI (P < 0.001), and have critical CAD anatomy in their coronary angiography (P < 0.001 for MVD and = 0.02 for LM disease) compared to non-pilgrim AMI patients. Despite AMI pilgrims recorded higher rate of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) procedures, they still showed poor hospital outcomes (P < 0.001, 0.004, < 0.001, 0.05, and 0.001, respectively for pulmonary edema, cardiogenic shock, mechanical ventilation, cardiac arrest, and in-hospital mortality, respectively). Being a pilgrim and presence of significant left ventricular systolic dysfunction, post AMI was the two independent predictors of mortality among our studied patients (P = 0.005 and 0.001, respectively). CONCLUSION: Although AMI pilgrims had less cardiovascular risk factors and they were early revascularized, they showed higher rates of post myocardial infarction complication and poor hospital outcomes. Implementation of pre-hajj screening, awareness and education programs, and primary and secondary preventive measures should be taken in to consideration to improve AMI pilgrim’s outcome.