UK researchers say they have found a new way to tell if a heart attack is more severe and might cause lasting harm - by looking for bruising or bleeding in the heart muscle. 
Patients with this sign on scans more often develop serious problems like heart failure, says the Glasgow team. 
The British Heart Foundation-funded work followed just over 200 patients to see how well they fared in the hours, weeks and months after being admitted to hospital with a heart attack. 
The researchers, who are presenting their work at a heart conference in Manchester, ran extra tests on the patients while they were in hospital. 
Prof Colin Berry and his team found that patients who had signs of bleeding in their heart muscle were more likely to develop later complications than patients who didn't have this damage. 
He suspects the bleeds may partly be caused by the blood-thinning drugs that doctors need to give to patients to treat a heart attack. Heart attacks occur when the main blood vessels supplying the heart get blocked by a clot. He says nearly half of heart attack patients probably have some bleeding or bruising of the heart - although not all of them will develop heart failure. 
The discovery could help with preventing such complications. 
Half a million UK people have heart failure and heart attacks are the leading cause. 

Source : QNA