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Updated: Oct 2, 2025

Post-Myocardial Infarction Heart Failure in Closed-chest Coronary Occlusion/Reperfusion Model in Göttingen Minipigs and Landrace Pigs
Published on: April 17, 2021
Relationship between plasma Neuregulin-1 and cardiac function in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction
Paul M Haller1,2, Inês F Gonçalves3,4, Eylem Acar3,4
1Department of Cardiology, University Heart & Vascular Center Hamburg, 20249 Hamburg, Germany.
Background:
Neuregulin-1 (NRG-1) is a stress-mediated transmembrane growth factor. Reduced myocardial damage and higher NRG-1 levels upon treatment with remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) has been described in rats. However, the role of NRG-1 in patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) is unknown. Thus, we conducted a post hoc analysis of a randomized controlled trial that tested RIC in patients with MI scheduled for primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI).
Methods:
Blood was drawn from 30 patients before RIC/PCI, within 1 hour, 4 days and 1 month later. Median left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in the overall study population following MI was 48.5%.
Results:
NRG-1 plasma levels decreased significantly following PCI/RIC and remained decreased up to 1 month following MI (p < 0.0001). We observed no association of NRG-1 with other variables, including total ischemic time, LVEF or RIC.
Conclusions:
Thus, we identified NRG-1 may be independently affected by MI. However, further large clinical trials are warranted to clarify this hypothesis.
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