I thought that bth my father and uncle had died of heart attacks.?

However on my father's death certificate it read:'Coronary artery thrombosis due to coronary artety atheroma.'
My uncle's read: 'Myocardial infarction.'
Are there different types of heart attack? Otherwise why not use the same wording for every heart attack.

Just leave it to doctors to make things as confusing as possible!!

Both your father and your uncle had heart attacks. Myocardial infarction is sorta generic for heart attack. Loosely translated, it means lack of oxygen (or lack of blood flow) to the heart muscle.

There are lots of things that can cause a lack of oxygen reaching the heart muscle. The most commonly understood reason is plaque in the artery that blocks the blood flow to a particular area of the heart muscle. This is what your father had. It's associated with the most common things you hear about heart disease: high cholesterol, family risk factors, bypass surgery and stents.

A heart attack can also be caused by a "free flowing" blood clot that wedges in a coronary artery, blocking it off. Some dangerous heart rhythms can cause the heart to not receive enough oxygen, spasms in the heart muscle and a "weak area" in a coronary artery that bursts (anuresm) can all be called heart attacks.

Why so specific on one and not the other?? Sometimes a doctor doesn't know "exactly" what caused the heart attack. If they do know, some doctors are really particular about being very specific like your father's doctor (that is really, really specific)and some aren't. If the person signing the death certificate isn't the patient's regular doctor they are often less specific, unless it's a pathologist which is usually very, very specific (due to autopsy).

I hope that clears things up a little bit, and gives you some understanding. I'm sorry for your losses.

one died due to blood clot in atreries causing heart attack.
Other heart attack with no real causes

Yes, both of then where hearts attacks, but their causes where different.
heart attacks occur from different causes.

Yes they did... There are different types of heart attack causes.

'Coronary artery thrombosis due to coronary artery atheroma.' --- Coronary arteries are arteries supplying blood to the heart. Thrombosis is a blood clot blocking these arteries causing the heart to dysfunction.

'Myocardial infarction.' --- Death of heart muscles due to a lack of oxygen.

Myocardial Infarction is the medical term for a "heart attack" where a blockage in a coronary artery, commonly due to a blood clot, causes death of part of the heart muscle. The wording on both death certificates will depend on the medical practitioner who is completing the form. Both terms relate to a heart attack. The older term for putting on the death certificate for heart attack is the coronary thrombosis due to atheroma, which means exactly the same as Myocardial Infarction.

As with all doctors, each one of them will interpret a condition differently depending on experience/expertise, and accordingly will use different terminology for the same condition. Other examples could be for strokes, one doctor could use the term CVA (cerebral vascular accident) and another could use thrombosis in cerebral arteries. Both exactly the same.

So the answer to the question, is yes unfortunately both your father and uncle died from a heart attack.

And in reply to the previous poster cathy4xo, coronary thrombosis and myocardial infarction are the same and BOTH cause damage to heart muscle

One doctor was just a bit more thorough than the other when completing the certificate.

no matter what sort of heart attacks they were, they still died from them, so it should be a warning to you to watch your health as it runs in familys.

There are numerous different types of heart attack all gathered together under the one banner - which is still correct, they are all heart attacks of one sort or another. Death certificates tend to be precise in their details and descibe the type of heart attack.