Staying in close contact with a doctor after being checked out for chest pains could lengthen a patient’s life. 

A Toronto study suggests people who are at high risk of having heart disease and who go to hospital with chest pains should see a doctor within 30 days of being released for followup care.

Senior author Dr. Dennis Ko of Toronto’s Sunnybrook Research Institute says some people may feel reassured once their pain is treated, but that shouldn’t be the end of it.  “I think sometimes they’ve been reassured and they think, I’m going to be okay.  I think this study provides some additional evidence that really hasn’t been shown before to say, in this cohort you still have the risk of having a cardiac event and you ought to have somebody see you for follow-up.” 

Researchers found that people who saw a cardiologist within a month after being released from hospital were more likely to be alive a year later than those who did not get followup care.