[Metabolic status of acute myocardial infarction as a function of residual blood flow with and without...

In mongrel dogs anesthetized with Nembutal, the left anterior descending coronary artery was ligated for 2 h. The residual blood flow (RBF) was correlated with tissue levels of various myocardial metabolites after 1 and 24 h and 7 days of reperfusion. ATP and the sum of adeninnucleotides showed a better recovery with an increasing RBF. Initial increased value of creatine phosphate was followed by a decrease to subnormal values, which cannot be sufficiently explained. There was an accelerated overshoot beyond normal values in glycogen levels after 7 days with increasing RBF. After 7 days there was no recovery to normal values, and below a RBF of 5 ml/100 g/min metabolic recovery was poor.