Authors'reply

摘要

We thank the correspondents for their comments on our Article. We agree with Johan Ejerhed and colleagues that understanding selection biases is vital for interpretation and we have previously shown that MINAP, like SWEDEHEART, does not capture all myocardial infarctions identified in hospital discharge data or in primary care. These missing patients are likely to be sicker; it is plausible that a higher proportion of patients are missed in the UK than in Sweden and this could mean that the true mortality differences between countries are even greater. Further research is required using multiple national sources of data including primary care. Our paper does offer a guide to the clinician-clinicians have a responsibility to improve the quality, completeness, and comparability of clinical data and to address the slow diffusion of new technologies in the UK.