Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Clinical Advance
  • Published:

Assessment of microvascular injury after acute myocardial infarction: importance of the area at risk

Nature Clinical Practice Cardiovascular Medicine volume 5, pages 756–757 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Microvascular obstruction after acute myocardial infarction has been associated with adverse ventricular remodeling, arrhythmias, and poor clinical outcome. Hirsch et al. demonstrate a moderate concordance between abnormal intracoronary Doppler flow characteristics assessed in the cardiac catheterization laboratory and microvascular obstruction detected noninvasively by delayed-enhancement MRI. The results indicate, however, that coronary flow measurements might be insensitive to small amounts of microvascular obstruction, and suggest that considering the 'area at risk' is important in the evaluation of the severity and extent of myocardial damage.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Kloner RA et al. (1974) The “no-reflow” phenomenon after temporary coronary occlusion in the dog. J Clin Invest 54: 1496–1508

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Hirsch A et al. (2008) Relation between the assessment of microvascular injury by cardiovascular magnetic resonance and coronary Doppler flow velocity measurements in patients with acute anterior wall myocardial infarction. J Am Coll Cardiol 51: 2230–2238

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Reimer KA and Jennings RB (1979) The “wavefront phenomenon” of myocardial ischemic cell death. II. Transmural progression of necrosis within the framework of ischemic bed size (myocardium at risk) and collateral flow. Lab Invest 40: 633–644

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. I Klem is a Faculty Member in the Duke Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Center and Division of Cardiology at Duke University Medical Center. RJ Kim is Co-Director of the Duke Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Center and Associate Professor of Medicine and Radiology at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA.,

    Igor Klem & Raymond J Kim

Authors
  1. Igor Klem
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Raymond J Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Raymond J Kim.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Klem, I., Kim, R. Assessment of microvascular injury after acute myocardial infarction: importance of the area at risk. Nat Rev Cardiol 5, 756–757 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpcardio1373

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpcardio1373

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing