Background: The usefulness of angioplasty in the first hours of an acute myocardial infarction is widely demonstrated. However, its long term effects are less well known.
Aim: To report the effects of coronary angioplasty on early and late outcome of patients with acute myocardial infarction.
Patients and methods: A non-randomized, consecutive and retrospective analysis of the hospital and late outcome of 70 patients, aged 35 to 85 years, subjected to coronary angioplasty during an acute myocardial infarction. Patients were followed during 12 to 60 months.
Results: Angioplasty was performed 5.3 +/- 5 hours after the initial symptoms. Anterior descendent artery was occluded in 63% of patients with a 99.5% luminal occlusion and TIMI 0-1 anterograde flow. An angiographic success was achieved in 83% of procedures with a residual stenosis of 32.3%. Recurrent ischemia was observed in 6% of patients, that were treated with a new revascularization procedure. Thirteen percent of patients died, all due to cardiogenic shock. Severe ventricular failure and failure of revascularization influenced mortality. During the first year of follow up there was a 3.3% mortality and 3.3% of patients required a new revascularization procedure. Eighty percent of patients were asymptomatic and event-free.
Conclusion: Angioplasty was a useful therapeutic procedure in this group of patients.