BACKGROUND The purpose of this observational study was to test the diagnostic performance of the Elecsys® troponin T high-sensitive system combined with copeptin measurement for early exclusion of acute myocardial infarction (MI) in clinical practice. METHODS Troponin T high-sensitive (diagnostic cutoff: <14 pg/mL) and copeptin (diagnostic cutoff: <14 pmol/L) levels were determined at admissi...

Although acute pericarditis has charachteristic electrocardiographic (ECG) findings that differentiate it from acute ST segment elevation myocardial infarction (MI); in certain cases diagnosis is somewhat difficult especially when the ECG reveals focal instead of diffuse changes and moreover when pericarditis is associated with an underlying myocarditis causing elevation of the cardiac biomarke...

Acute myocardial infarction (MI) during pregnancy is rare and MI due to Prinzmetal's angina is much rarer. We present a 35-year-old, obese, multigravida, and pre-eclamptic woman, who developed acute anterior wall MI at the 30th week of gestation. On coronary angiography, the second obtuse marginal branch was totally occluded and the right coronary artery (RCA) was normal. Three days later, she ...

A 36-year-old man with classic angina pectoris had marked ST-segment elevation (STE) in the inferior leads on stress-testing in the absence of chest pain. There was no evidence of previous myocardial infarction (MI). Selective coronary arteriography delineated severe obstructions in the right coronary artery (RCA) with additional left circumflex coronary artery (LCx) obstruction. Left ventricul...

BACKGROUND Diabetic patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) have higher mortality than nondiabetic patients. The purpose of this study was to examine if larger infarct size explains the higher mortality in diabetic patients with acute ST-segment-elevation MI. METHODS In the CORE trial (n = 2948), subsets of patients underwent quantitative radionuclide measurement of technetium Tc 99m s...

AIMS To determine whether the low-molecular weight heparin enoxaparin remains favourable when compared with unfractionated heparin (UFH) among patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) when incorporating efficacy and safety of these adjunctive therapies using a net clinical endpoint. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed a meta-analysis of randomized trials of enoxaparin vs. UFH in ST-elevation...

BACKGROUND Complement, activated during myocardial ischemia and reperfusion, causes myocardial damage through multiple processes. The COMplement inhibition in Myocardial infarction treated with Angioplasty (COMMA) trial was performed to determine the effect of pexelizumab, a C5 complement inhibitor, on infarct size in patients with ST-segment-elevation myocardial infarction (MI) undergoing prim...

AIM Interleukin (IL)-17 pathway is being clinically targeted in immune-mediated diseases, most of which are associated with a significant cardiovascular risk. We investigated the relationship between serum levels of IL-17 and the risk of cardiovascular events in patients with acute myocardial infarction. METHODS AND RESULTS We used data from 981 patients enrolled in the prospective, multicent...