Forrest General to participate in two cardiac studies
Forrest General has announced its participation in two upcoming studies to assist national organizations in gathering data on cardiac procedure effectiveness and incidence of heart attacks.
The first study, conducted by the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University (MSU), is designed to determine whether city-wide smoking bans reduce the number of heart attacks in citizens from the area. Hattiesburg, along with several other Mississippi cities, has enacted a local smoking ban for all indoor public places to protect citizens from secondhand smoke. Several recent studies have shown that secondhand smoke increases the risk of myocardial infarction, or heart attacks. This is attributed to secondhand smoke’s activation of blood clots, which can cause clots in the blood stream that lead to heart attacks. This study, which will involve the hospital’s provision of heart attack admission data, seeks to determine whether the local smoking bans in cities like Hattiesburg, Starkville and Oxford, have led to a change in hospital and emergency room admissions and transfers for acute myocardial infarctions.
The second study, conducted through a partnership of the American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF) and The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, will look at the effectiveness of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery for the treatment of stable coronary artery disease. The study, titled ASCERT, will compare the two procedures using patient data to determine the best treatment option for the disease.
For more information on Forrest General’s available heart and vascular or other services, call FGH OnCall at 1-800-844-4445 or visit forrestgeneral.com.
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