Treatment of acute myocardial infarction - state of the art

Clinical data in acute STEMI clearly show the superiority of intracoronary intervention vs thrombolysis. Short- and long-term events with the exception of major bleeding are significantly reduced by PTCA. Recent clinical data show that even transfer to interventional centers does not reduce the overall benefits significantly. If transfer is necessary, onset of symptoms within less than 3 hours might indicate equality in mortality outcome for both treatments. To ensure optimal outcome of PTCA, intracoronary interventions have to be performed on a regular basis. A very low frequency of interventions levels the benefit of PTCA vs lysis.