Effects of exercise test on plasma markers of an activation of coagulation and/or fibrinolysis in patients with symptomatic or silent myocardial ischemia.

It has been suggested that unstable angina at rest, like acute myocardial infarction, might be associated with a thrombotic process. In order to study the hypothesis that myocardial ischemia during exercise could also be associated with an activation of blood coagulation and/or fibrinolysis, we investigated the presence of plasma markers of a prethrombotic or thrombotic state (thrombin-antithrombin III complexes TAT, prothrombin fragment F1 + 2, and D-dimers DD) in 100 consecutive patients with confirmed or suspected coronary artery disease during ergometric test with myocardial thallium-201 scintigraphy. Symptoms and scintigrams allowed to define three groups of patients: those showing no ischemia (n = 79) and those with symptomatic (n = 8) or silent myocardial ischemia (n = 13). Before exercise, DD and TAT levels were not significantly different among the three groups. On the other hand, the F1 + 2 levels were slightly albeit significantly higher in the patients without ischemia than in the patients with symptomatic or silent ischemia. After exercise, no significant difference was found between the three groups. Exercise induced a significant and parallel increase in both the TAT and the F1 + 2 levels (but not of the DD levels) in the three groups. Thus, our study does not support the hypothesis that myocardial ischemia, silent or symptomatic, is associated with an activation of plasma coagulation and fibrinolysis that can be distinguished from the exercise-induced thrombin generation.