[Acute myocardial infarction: what is new?]. / Infarctus du myocarde et thrombolyse: actualités.

Current recommendations on the management of acute myocardial infarction and the use of thrombolysis are reviewed.

Early increase of von Willebrand factor predicts adverse outcome in unstable coronary artery disease: beneficial effects of enoxaparin. French Investigators of the ESSENCE Trial.

BACKGROUND: The pathogenesis of unstable angina and non-Q-wave myocardial infarction is still poorly understood, and early evaluation of prognosis remains difficult. We therefore studied the predictive value of 5 biological indicators of inflammation, thrombogenesis, vasoconstriction, and myocardial necrosis, and we examined the effects of enoxaparin and unfractionated heparin on these markers after 48 hours of treatment. METHODS AND RESULTS: Sixty-eight patients with unstable angina or non-Q-wave myocardial infarction randomized in the international ESSENCE trial participated in this French substudy. C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, von Willebrand factor antigen, endothelin-1 and troponin I were measured on admission and 48 hours later. The composite end point of death, myocardial infarction, recurrent angina, or revascularization was significantly lower at 14 and 30 days of follow-up in patients allocated to enoxaparin compared with unfractionated heparin. All acute-phase reactant proteins were elevated on admission and increased further at 48 hours. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the rise of von Willebrand factor over 48 hours was a significant and independent predictor of the composite end point at both 14 days and 30 days. Moreover the early increase of von Willebrand factor was more frequent and more severe with unfractionated heparin than with enoxaparin (mean change was +8.7+/-8.8% with enoxaparin versus +93.9+/-11.7% with unfractionated heparin, P<0.0001). The other clinical and biological variables did not predict outcome. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with unstable angina or non-Q-wave myocardial infarction, the acute-phase proteins increase over the first 2 days despite medical treatment. The early rise of von Willebrand factor is an independent predictor of adverse clinical outcome at 14 days and at 30 days. Enoxaparin provides protection as evidenced by the reduced release of von Willebrand factor, which represents a favorable prognostic finding.

[Detection of disease of the anterior interventricular artery by 2-dimensional echocardiography in acute inferior infarction. Comparison with the electrocardiographic data]. / Détection de l'atteinte de l'artère interventriculaire antérieure par l'échographie bidimensionnelle dans les infarctus inférieurs au stade aigu. Comparaison avec les données électrocardiographiques.

The authors report their experience of 2D echocardiography in the acute stage of myocardial infarction. One hundred patients, 60 men and 40 women, aged 60 +/- 4.5 years (range 32 to 69 years) were admitted to hospital with an uncomplicated inferior myocardial infarction and underwent 2D echocardiography on admission and coronary angiography 15 days later. Ten patients were excluded because unsatisfactory quality of the echocardiographic images. Forty-seven patients had initial ST depression of at least 1 mm in leads V1 to V4 (Group I) and 43 patients did not show these electrical changes (Group II). There were no significant differences in the clinical findings or in the cardiovascular risk factors between the 2 groups. On the other hand, inaugural necrosis was commoner in Group II (p less than 0.03) and cardiomegaly and CPK elevation greater in Group I (p less than 0.02). 2D echocardiography demonstrated the same degree of posterior wall hypokinesia or akinesia in the 2 groups. Septal hypokinesia was observed twice as commonly in Group I (p less than 0.03) both at echocardiography and ventriculography. Haemodynamic and angiographic data showed that double and triple vessel disease was commoner (p less than 0.05), that left anterior descending disease was more severe (p less than 0.03), left ventricular end diastolic pressure was higher (p less than 0.02) and the ejection fraction lower (p less than 0.02) in Group I, compared with Group II.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)