National Affairs: CORONARY THROMBOSIS

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Despite the great advances in medicines and surgery, the main treatment still is rest, so as to keep the work done by the heart at a minimum and allow time for scar tissue to form. In many cases of lesser severity, the period of complete bed rest is about three weeks, followed by convalescence of two or three months; in more serious cases, convalescence lasts six months or more. Doctors' long-term advice to most recovered coronary patients includes regular—but not strenuous—exercise, abstinence from tobacco, dieting against excess weight, and, insofar as it is possible, freedom from emotional tension. Under modern medical care, 80% of all coronary thrombosis cases survive their first attack, and many of them live long afterward.