[t-PA in thrombolytic therapy of acute myocardial infarct].

In the past decade, thrombolytic therapy has become standard treatment of acute myocardial infarction. When the importance of thrombosis in the pathogenesis of acute infarction was fully recognised, several plasminogen activators were developed, streptokinase, urokinase, recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA, alteplase), anistreplase and saruplase (prourokinase). Thrombolytic agents are plasminogen activators which possess as a common characteristic the ability to activate plasminogen to plasmin, and result in fibrinolysis and varying degrees of depletion of circulating fibrinogen, factor V and factor VIII. A lot of animal experiments provided the basis for the rationale that recanalisation and reperfusion early in the course of myocardial infarction would limit myocardial necrosis, improve left ventricular function, and improve patient outcome. Native tissue plasminogen activator is normally secreted by vascular endothelium and the most important property of the drug is its relative fibrin specificity. Fibrin strikingly increases the rate of conversion of plasminogen to plasmin by t-PA. The isolation of the complementary DNA coding for t-PA, its insertion into the genome of Chinese hamster ovary cells, and its expression in suspension cultures of these cells have facilitated the large-scale production of t-PA, making it available as a drug for the treatment of acute myocardial infarction. A variety of dosage schemes have been used for alteplase, the standard schedule has been 100 mg given over 3 hours. Higher doses and faster administration (accelerated, front-loaded) are associated with higher patency rates. Alteplase has generally but not always been shown to have higher reocclusion rates than the non-fibrin-specific plasminogen activators. Reocclusion has been shown to be associated with adverse clinical outcome. Therefore, the rate of reocclusion is considered an important measure in evaluating thrombolytic regimens. The combination of alteplase with either urokinase or streptokinase has resulted in early patency rates comparable to alteplase alone, and low rates of reocclusion. Large, randomised clinical trials have demonstrated that thrombolytic therapy reduces mortality significantly in patients with ST elevation treated within the first 6 to 12 hours of acute myocardial infarction. As compared to an overall reduction of mortality with thrombolytic treatment, neither the GISSI-2/international trial nor the Third International Study of Infarct Survival (ISIS-3) trial of more than 60,000 patients found a difference in associated mortality between the use of streptokinase and the use of t-PA, or between the use of these agents and that of anistreplase. The addition of subcutaneous heparin to the regimens did not significantly reduce mortality as compared with no use of heparin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)