We studied 398 patients with diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction who arrived within the first six hours of symptom onset that were treated with thrombolysis or primary angioplasty, they were divided in two groups: Group 1 (n = 198), those treated with 1.5 million U of streptokinase over 60 min and Group 2 (n = 200), those treated with primary angioplasty. In Group 1 the "pain-door" time was 3.7 +/- 1.7 hs vs 3.8 +/- 2.4 hs in group 2 (p = NS). The "door-needle" time was 48 +/- 12 min. compared with the "door-balloon" time of 84 +/- 30 min (p < 0.001). In Group 1, 154 (77.6%) of the patients had clinical of reperfusion after thrombolysis, 58 of them underwent coronary angiography and had an infarct related artery (IRA) patency rate of 45.3%. In Group 2 the IRA patency rate was 85.5% (p < 0.005).
Conclusion: Thrombolysis was achieved in a lesser period of time but our findings showed that primary angioplasty was more effective obtaining a TIMI 3 flow.