More Canadians sent to hospital with heart attacks are surviving but the mortality rate for those admitted for strokes remains the same, according to a report released Wednesday.

The short-term death rate in hospital for heart attack patients dropped from 13.4 per cent in 1999-2000 to 11.1 per cent in 2004-2005, the Canadian Institute for Health Information said.

Heart attack and mortality rates vary greatly across Canada.
(CBC)

Patients admitted to hospital with a new stroke were more likely to die in the short term than those with a heart attack — 18.8 per cent died in hospital within 30 days in 2004–2005, a mortality rate that has remained about the same for five years.

Women admitted with a new heart attack or stroke were more likely to die in hospital within 30 days than men, after taking age and health conditions into account.

The risk of dying from heart attack was 16 per cent greater for females, and for stroke the risk was 11 per cent higher.

The higher female mortality rates may be a result of fewer women being transferred and seen by a specialist, the report's authors said. 

Regional differences

"It is encouraging to see that the odds of surviving a heart attack are improving," said Glenda Yeates, the institute's president and CEO, in a release.

"But looking across the country, death rates vary considerably from region to region, which suggests that there is an opportunity for further improvement."

Heart attack mortality rates across Canada ranged from 7.8 per cent in Interlake, Man., to 16.1 per cent in Fraser North, B.C.

For stroke, the mortality rates varied from 14.7 per cent in Regina to 24.5 per cent in both Prince Albert, Sask., and Central Manitoba.

The rates for more serious strokes, hemorrhagic, are going down. Hemorrhagic strokes are caused by the rupture of a blood vessel inside the skull.

For stroke, the single factor that seemed to make a difference was whether the patient was followed by a specialist. 

More factors were involved for heart attack, such as whether the patient was transferred to another hospital with more access to specialized care, and how many cases the hospital handles.

The report lacks data on heart attacks and strokes from Quebec and heart attack data from Newfoundland and Labrador.

There is only one year of data from B.C.