Reperfusion therapy

Reperfusion therapy is medical treatment that restores blood flow through blocked arteries, typically after a heart attack (myocardial infarction). Categories of reperfusion therapy thus include clot-busting (fibrinolytic) drugs and procedures to open arteries with stents, or to graft arteries around blockages. These interventions have become so central to the modern treatment of acute myocardial infarction, that we are said to be in the reperfusion era. Patients who present with suspected acute myocardial infarction and ST segment elevation (STEMI) or new bundle branch block on the 12 lead ECG are presumed to have an occlusive thrombosis in an epicardial coronary artery. They are therefore candidates for immediate reperfusion, either with thrombolytic therapy, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or when these therapies are unsuccessful, bypass surgery.