[Prescriptions following acute coronary syndrome]

Each year in France, 150,000 to 180,000 new patients are the subject of prescriptions following acute coronary syndrome with or without ST segment elevation. There are two targets of the treatment, atherosclerosis, a diffuse, evolving trouble which, in this situation, is coming out of an unstable phase, and the myocardium, which has often been revascularised and has suffered deterioration of its contractile and electrophysiological characteristics to a greater or lesser extent. Prescriptions, based on proven factors and always centred on hygiene and dietary advice and the use of a combination of statins and aspirin, are adapted to suit the atherosclerotic and myocardial risk assessed for the individual patient. The prescription starts off the secondary preventive phase. It marks the first stage of the follow up, which is inevitable though of variable duration, for a disease which may evolve. It is the first step in the accompaniment of an attentive, informed patient whose confidence has been restored and who must now avoid falling into the double trap of not taking the treatment sufficiently seriously or of obsessively over-reacting.