[Cardiac enzymes in acute cerebrovascular diseases: their behavior in relation to ECG].

The blood levels of CPK and CPK MB enzymes were measured in 3 groups of patients: group A consists of 13 patients affected by acute vascular cerebropathy (A.V.C.) with evident ECG changes, group B consists of 10 patients showing fairly slight or no changes in the ECG and group C is the control group. It was noted that in patients affected by A.V.C., CPK and CPK values increase over a time span between the 2nd and 4th days and the 8th and 9th days of the condition, with peaks on the 4th day. The rise in CPK MB that reaches a highly significant statistical difference in group A compared to group B and C (P less than 0.01) is particularly interesting. Further, group A consists of older patients and is characterised by a larger number of deaths; death often coincides with peaks in CPK MB and in total CPK. It is therefore deduced that a high value of these enzymes, just as appreciable changes in ECG have an unfavourable prognostic value and that the increase in CPK MB expresses a real myocardial problem that probably contributes, along with the cerebral damage, to the death of the patient.