Aldosterone blockade in patients with acute myocardial infarction.

Myocardial Infarction To the Editor: In Dr Bertram Pitt’s excellent editorial, “Aldosterone blockade in patients with acute myocardial infarction,”1 the first word in the next-to-last line of the left column on page 2525 should, I believe, read “hyperkalemia” rather than “hypokalemia.” In addition, in discussing the possible mechanisms by which aldosterone blockade might result in a decrease in sudden cardiac death, one might have included the rather old demonstration that administration of intravenous potassium canrenoate, an antialdosterone agent, to patients with acute myocardial infarction reduces ventricular extrasystoles and ventricular fibrillation,2 as well as the more recent observation that aldosterone alters myocardial repolarization by increasing monophasic action potential duration.3