Bendjelid Karim, Pugin Jérôme
Chef de Clinique Scientifique, Surgical Intensive Care Division, University Hospital of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 14, Switzerland.
Chest. 2004 Nov;126(5):1680-2. doi: 10.1378/chest.126.5.1680.
Post-acute myocardial infarction (AMI) syndrome was first described by Dressler in 1956. Its incidence has decreased in the reperfusion era, most likely because of the extensive use of thrombolysis and coronary balloon angioplasty, therapies that dramatically decreased the size of myocardial necrosis. The authors suggest that drugs that have been prescribed in previous decades as the post-AMI "standard-of-care," such as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, beta-blockers, and statins, may also play an important role in the disappearance of Dressler syndrome due to their immunomodulatory effects.