Acute myocardial infarction and myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury: a comparison

Myocardial infarction (MI) denotes the death of cardiac myocytes due to extended ischemia. Myocardial reperfusion is the restoration of coronary blood flow after a period of coronary occlusion. Reperfusion has the potential to salvage ischemic myocardium but paradoxically can cause injury, a phenomenon called as 'reperfusion injury' (IR). Standard histologic, immunohistochemical and Elisa techniques were used to study the histopathologic, oxidative, apoptotic and inflammatory changes in MI and IR. The IL-6 levels in the LV of the MI group were significantly raised as compared to the IR group (P=0.0008). Plasma IL-6 was also significantly increased in the MI group as compared to the IR group (P=0.031). MI model was also associated with increase in the neutrophil polymorphs number in the infarction related myocardium as compared to the re-perfused myocardium. A significant increase in troponin I level in the MI group as compared to the IR group is also seen (P=0.0001). Our IR model showed enhanced proapoptotic mediators like cleaved caspase-3 (P=0.005) and cytochrome c in the myocardium as compared to the MI model. In conclusion, myocardial damage in MI is mainly due to ischemic necrosis and inflammatory mechanisms while apoptosis is the main mechanism of cell death in IR in addition to limited ischemic necrosis.