Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Western countries. The best hope of salvaging viable myocardium after a coronary occlusion is by rapid reperfusion of the ischemic myocardium, either by thrombolysis or primary percutaneous coronary intervention. The use of intravenous intralipid infusion instead of thrombolysis or primary percutaneous coronary intervention is first suggested in the medical literature.Correspondence to: Joseph Eldor, Theoretical Medicine Institute, Jerusalem, Israel, E-mail: csen_international@csen.com
Key words: intralipid, myocardial infarction, coronary occlusionReceived: June 18, 2017; Accepted: July 15, 2017; Published: July 17, 2017
Thrombolysis or primary percutaneous coronary intervention or Intralipid Infusion?Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Western countries. The best hope of salvaging viable myocardium after a coronary occlusion is by rapid reperfusion of the ischemic myocardium, either by thrombolysis or primary percutaneous coronary intervention. Although reperfusion restores blood flow, oxygen, and nutrients to the cardiac muscle, it also has the potential to induce reperfusion injury.Postconditioning of the heart with brief episodes of reperfusion/ occlusion at the onset of reflow has been shown to limit infarct size. However, this approach is not practical for patients treated with thrombolytic agents and therefore a more generic pharmacologic postconditioning is still needed. The ideal pharmacologic candidates need to be safe and effective when administered during the first few minutes of reperfusion by inducing cellular protection or enhancing myocardial tolerance to ischemia/reperfusion injury. Several drugs have yielded encouraging results in animals and a few have been tested in humans; however, none of these modalities has been widely accepted.Lipids and in particular polyunsaturated fatty acids have received special cardiovascular research attention because polyunsaturated fatty acid-rich diets are associated with a decreased risk of coronary artery disease. Acute application of polyunsaturated fatty acids to cardiomyocytes has also been shown to shorten action potential duration and this could account for the antiarrhythmic mechanism of the polyunsaturated fatty acids. Intralipid (Sigma, St. Louis, MO) is a brand name for the first safe fat emulsion for human use; Intralipid 20% is an emulsion of soybean oil (20%), egg yolk phospholipids (1.2%), and glycerol (2.2%). Intralipid has been widely used in patients who need total parenteral nutrition and as a vehicle for different drugs such as propofol. It has been shown recently that postischemic administration of Intralipid protects the isolated rat heart against ischemia/reperfusion injury. However, the molecular mechanism in which Intralipid mediates cardioprotection is completely unknown [1].Intralipid, a brand name for the first safe fat emulsion for human use, has been shown to be cardioprotective. However, the mechanism ...