Chicago – Carbon-monoxide poisoning frequently causes symptomless heart damage that appears to shorten patients’ lives even if they make it out of the hospital OK, a study found.
All 230 patients studied had poisoning similar to that suffered by the sole survivor of the Jan. 2 West Virginia mine explosion, although most were exposed to the toxic gas from faulty furnaces or fires, not mining disasters.
Overall, 37 percent had heart- muscle damage caused by carbon-monoxide exposure, including six of 12 patients who died in the hospital, the researchers said.
Nearly 40 percent of the heart-damage patients died within about seven years. By contrast, 15 percent of the patients without heart damage died during the follow-up period.
The heart damage often caused no initial symptoms. It was detected by hospital tests.
Those tests – including an electrocardiogram and a blood test to detect elevated levels of a protein called troponin – are not routinely given to all carbon-monoxide patients, but they should be, based on the study’s findings, said lead author Dr. Timothy Henry, research director at the Minnesota Heart Institute Foundation.
The study appears in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Carbon-monoxide poisoning is the most common type of accidental poisoning nationwide, contributing to 40,000 emergency-room visits annually in the United States, the researchers said. Each year, the odorless gas is responsible for about 500 accidental deaths.
