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Question:
What does "massive" mean when describing a heart attack?
What is a massive heart attack, and what is thedifferencebetween a heart attack and then a massive heart attack?
submitted by Myron from Ossian, Indiana on 10/6/09
Answer:
by Texas Heart Institute cardiologist, Christopher M. Frank, MD
Patients and doctors often use the phrase "heart attack" in different ways,which is complicated by the fact that an event that a physician in an emergency room might call a heart attack based on limited information may turn out later to be nothing of the sort. To most physicians, the phrase "heart attack" means specifically that the patient has experienced a "myocardial infarction," or an area of the heart muscle that has died as a result of blockages in the arteries of the heart. "Angina" is a less severe problem in which the patient experiences chest discomfort as a result of problems with the heart, but may not have experienced death of any heart muscle. A completely different event, best referred to as "sudden cardiac arrest" or "sudden cardiac death" is a primarily electrical problem in which the heart goes into a life threatening rhythm, resulting in the patient passing out and possibly dying if not resuscitated immediately. Myocardial infarction is a common cause of cardiac arrest, but there are many other possible causes as well.
Unfortunately, in an attempt to avoid medical jargon, doctors and nurses sometimes create confusion, and patients often describe themselves as having had a "heart attack" when they have had any of these different problems,which can make it difficult to know how best to treat them. Finally, although the phrase "massive heart attack" is often used, there is no specific way in which that differs from a "heart attack" except in the amount of heart muscle that has died.
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Updated October 2009
