Intravenous and intracoronary fibrinolytic therapy in acute myocardial infarction: Overview of results on mortality, reinfarction and side-effects from 33 randomized controlled trials

During the past 25 years, 24 randomized trials of intravenous (IV) fibrinolytic treatment have been reported, involving a total of some 6000 patients in the acute phase of myocardial infarction. Most tested IV streptokinase (SK), but a few tested IV urokinase (UK). In the past 2 or 3 years numerous small randomized trials of intracoronary (IC) SK have been started, 9 of which, involving a total of about 1000 such patients, have been reported. …