Myocardial ischemia: Reversible and irreversible changes

Abstract

Recently there has been a growing tendency to remove thrombi, either surgically or medically, from the coronary arterial systems of patients who have had myocardial infarctions. Such interventions are successful or fail depending on the duration of the obstruction, i.e., on whether the ischemic lesion is in the reversible or irreversible stage. It is therefore important to obtain more detailed knowledge of the phenomena determining the reversibility, or lack thereof, of myocardial ischemia.