Register for email alerts and news feeds:
This journal | BMJ Group
rss
Emergency Medicine Journal 2009;26:541-542; doi:10.1136/emj.2008.068767
© 2009 BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and the College of Emergency Medicine.

EMERGENCY CASEBOOKS

Early administration of thrombolysis can prevent myocardial necrosis: time is myocardium

A Suri1, S Ahsan2, J Lim1, T-P Cusack1, T P Chua1,3, E W Leatham1,4

1 Department of Cardiology, Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, UK
2 Department of Cardiology, The Heart Hospital, UCH, London, UK
3 Department of Cardiology, St George’s Hospital, Tooting, London, UK
4 Department of Cardiology, Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK

Correspondence to:
Dr A Suri, Department of Cardiology, Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, UK; mrajaysuri{at}hotmail.com

ABSTRACT

A case is presented in which a 66-year-old man received thrombolysis for an acute ST elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) within 6 minutes of developing chest pain. An ECG performed 10 minutes after thrombolysis showed complete resolution of the ST segment elevation and showed no other abnormality. An echocardiogram showed normal left ventricular function and there was no detectable myocardial necrosis, as evidenced by two negative troponin assays. The case clearly reinforces the benefits of the rapid delivery of thrombolysis when appropriate for patients with STEMI. Clinicians need to be aware of the benefits of early thrombolysis as laid out in the national service framework. Evidence for the early administration of thrombolysis, data from the Myocardial Infarction National Audit Project and the future with regard to improving thrombolysis times are discussed.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?

This Article

Services
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with

Register for free content

The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.

Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.

 

The journal is co-owned by and the official journal of College of Emergency Medicine

Official journal of British Association for Immediate Care: BASICS, Faculty of Pre-Hospital Care, Irish Society for Immediate Care and Swedish Society for Emergency Medicine: SweSEM

Emergency Medicine Jobs

Emergency Medicine Jobs