[Ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in acute myocardial infarct in the era of thrombolytics].

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) in the setting of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains an actual problem. There is a very close relationship between ventricular arrhythmias and SCD in AMI. Malignant ventricular arrhythmias, such as ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia are the major causes of SCD in coincidence with AMI.

[Pathogenesis of myocardial ischemia and acute coronary syndromes].

Since the seventies, and in particular the eighties of this century, findings on pathogenetic mechanisms of ischaemic heart disease are expanding markedly and are becoming more accurate. This makes it possible to know and understand better factors which influence the genesis and development of myocardial ischaemia including the most serious clinical forms (unstable angina pectoris, acute myocardial infarction and sudden cardiac death). Diminution of the cardiac flow and/or increased oxygen demands of the heart muscle are not the only determinants of myocardial ischaemia which is influenced markedly also by neurohumoral, metabolic, prothrombotic (proaggregation and procoagulation) factors as well as antithrombotic and haemodynamic factors.

[Pathogenesis and fundamentals of treatment in acute myocardial infarct].

Recent findings which extend and render more accurate factors which influence the genesis and course of experimental and clinical acute myocardial infarction change in a significant way the treatment and management of patients with acute infarction. The authors discuss the basic factors and complex of interactions which play the most important part in the pathophysiology of acute infarction. They pay attention also to other factors which can influence in a significant way the course of acute infarction and the patient's prognosis (residual thrombosis, rethrombosis, extension, expansion of the infarction and remodelling of the left ventricle).