Detection of coronary artery reperfusion with creatine kinase-MB determinations during thrombolytic therapy: correlation with acute angiography.

Increases in plasma creatine kinase-MB (MB CK) were correlated with the onset of coronary artery reperfusion determined angiographically in 32 patients with acute myocardial infarction who were treated with recombinant human tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA). Reperfusion occurred in 14 (70%) of 20 patients with left anterior descending coronary artery occlusion and in 8 (73%) of 11 patients with right coronary artery occlusion. One patient had persistent left circumflex coronary artery occlusion. Plasma MB CK levels (radioimmunometric assay) did not increase significantly in patients with persistent occlusion, but increased by a mean (+/- SEM) of 8 +/- 1 and 6 +/- 1 times over pretreatment levels at the end of the infusion in patients with a reperfused left anterior descending and right coronary artery, respectively. When a greater than or equal to 2.5-fold increase in MB CK levels at the end of the rt-PA infusion was taken as evidence of reperfusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery, 13 (93%) of 14 patients with reperfusion and 5 (83%) of 6 with persistent occlusion were correctly identified. When a greater than or equal to 2.2-fold increase in MB CK levels was used to identify right coronary artery reperfusion, seven (89%) of eight patients with persistent occlusion were correctly identified. The sensitivity and specificity of these indexes, derived from and applied to the same patient group, were 91 and 89%, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)