Black heart patients less likely to survive.

Following cardiac arrest, black patients are less likely than white patients to survive and be discharged from the hospital, according to a study in the Sept. 16 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Based on a study of about 10,000 patients with cardiac arrest due to two potentially problematic cardiac symptoms, the study found rates of survival to discharge were about 25 percent for black patients and 37 percent for white patients. Those lower survival rates among black patients reflected both lower rates of successful resuscitation, 56 percent versus 67 percent for whites, and post-resuscitation survival, 45 percent versus 56 percent for whites.

Much of the racial difference in survival was linked to the hospital center in which black patients received care, the study found. Black patients were more likely to be treated at hospitals that had worse outcomes. The study's authors said eliminating the disparities in heart attack survival rates would depend largely on improving care at those poorly performing hospitals.