Early postinfarction ischemia: clinical, angiographic, and prognostic significance.

Early ischemia, defined as angina with transient ST-T changes during hospitalization, 24 hr or more after an acute myocardial infarction (MI), was observed in 79 (18%) of a consecutive series of 449 patients surviving an MI and catheterized a mean of 10 +/- 3 days after admission. Three clinical factors present 24 hr after admission could identify patients at low, medium, and high risk of factors had a risk greater than 50% and the 118 patients with Q wave MI, no previous angina, and absence of risk factors had a risk of less than 8%. The angiographic correlates of early ischemia were number of vessels with 70% or more stenosis (2.1 +/- 0.8 vs 1.7 +/- 0.8/patient, p less than .0001), number of diseased coronary artery segments (2.8 +/- 1.4 vs 2.1 +/- 1.2, p less than .0001), left anterior descending coronary involvement (77% vs 62% of patients, p = .01), number of normally contractile segments at jeopardy because of a coronary stenosis (1.9 +/- 1.3 vs 1.3 +/- 1.1/patient, p less than .0002), collateral circulation at jeopardy (24% vs 15% of patients, p less than .005), and fewer collateral vessels distal to a tight stenosis (59 vs 72% of patients, p = .04). The stepwise logistic regression retained one angiographic and two clinical independent predictors of early ischemia: number of diseased vessels (p = .0008), presence of a non-Q wave MI (p = .0027), and previous angina (p = .017).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)