Pathophysiology of Myocardial Infarction and Acute Management Strategies

On an annual basis, 13.2% of all deaths are attributable to coronary artery disease (CAD), which makes CAD - with 7.4 million deaths - the leading cause of death in the world. In this review, we discuss current knowledge in the pathophysiology of atherosclerosis with its progression to stable CAD and its destabilization and complication with thrombus formation - myocardial infarction (MI). Next, we describe mechanisms of myocardial cell death in MI, the ischemia-reperfusion injury, leftventricular remodeling and complications of MI. Furthermore, we add acute management strategies concentrating on medical therapy, a decision on the reperfusion strategy, timing and cardiac protection by ischemic preconditioning, post-conditioning and remote ischemic conditioning.