A STATISTICAL STUDY ON MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION AND CORONARY SCLEROSIS IN AUTOPSY MATERIALS IN JAPAN

This survey was performed by the Japanese Pathological Society and briefly reported at the 9th Conference of the International Society of Geographical Pathology. The materials consisted of 12,430 autopsies in colleges and several main hospitals in Japan. The number of cases with myocardial infarction was 817 (6.57%) in total, but 670 (6.10%) among 10,976 autopsies were examined further in detail. The incidence of cases with larger manifest infarction was 338 (3.08%) of 10,976 autopsies. The incidence of cases with myocardial infarction was found to be far less in Japan than in Europe and America. The incidence of both moderate and severe coronary sclerosis (G1 and G2) was considerably low (the frequency of C2 was 12.14%), while that was far higher in cases with myocardial infarction (64.5%). The frequency of coronary thrombosis in cases with manifest infarction was 29.9%, while that in non‐manifest one 3.0%. There were 191 cases with myocardial infarction regarded as the cause of death (28.5% of 670 cases), the majority of which, 183, belonged among cases with manifest infarction.