Intracoronary Thrombolysis for Acute Myocardial Infarction

Excerpt

Recent observations have prompted reexamination of our concepts concerning optimal therapy for myocardial infarction. Rentrop and associates have shown the acutely occluded coronary artery could be recanalized safely in many patients with acute myocardial infarction by intracoronary administration of streptokinase (1). This observation, when considered with that of DeWood and associates (2), who showed by angiography that complete obstruction to coronary flow caused by thrombosis occurs in nearly 90% of patients in the early hours of myocardial infarction, strongly suggests that intracoronary thrombolysis has important therapeutic potential. The medical community received the first reports about this promising therapeutic technique with