Every minute counts: A cardiologist explains the devastating risks of delaying chest pain care and details modern, life-saving options like Primary Angioplasty to prevent permanent heart muscle damage.
Immediate Chest Pain Treatment Saves Heart Muscle
The urgency surrounding a cardiac event cannot be overstated. According to leading medical experts, including cardiologists from Manipal Hospital, the decision to ignore or delay chest pain treatment is the single greatest risk factor determining the outcome of a heart attack. This critical advice underscores a simple, yet life-saving truth: immediate chest pain treatment saves heart muscle.
A heart attack, or myocardial infarction, occurs when blood flow to a section of the heart muscle is blocked, often by a blood clot. The damage is a time-dependent equation. As Dr. Keshava emphasizes, every passing minute results in the death of more heart tissue, and this destruction can become permanent. The statistics are chilling: a delay of just six hours can result in up to 25 percent of the heart muscle being injured, a figure that can climb past 90 percent after 24 hours. Put simply, the longer one waits, the less muscle remains to save.
