Reduction of Ischemic Injury by Nitroglycerin during Acute Myocardial Infarction

ARRHYTHMIAS and cardiac failure are two of the major, potentially lethal sequelae of acute myocardial infarction. Although measures used to treat arrhythmias are usually considered separately from those used to treat myocardial failure, it is clear that arrhythmias and myocardial failure share a common precipitating mechanism —severe ischemic injury (as defined by a reduction in oxygen delivery to the myocardial cell resulting initially in aberrations of biochemical, electrophysiologic and mechanical function and, if unrelieved, ultimately in cell death). Moreover, in some cases of acute myocardial infarction complicated by left ventricular failure and ventricular arrhythmias, the temporal sequence of events suggests….