Pathways of prevention and treatment of ischemic‐reperfusion injury as consequence of myocardial infarction

Myocardial infarction and the phenomenon of ischemic‐reperfusion injury (IRI) which happens as adverse unwanted effect of the restoration of blood flow in the affected area in the post infarction period is one of the main causes of patient’s death all over the world, what makes the prevention and treatment of this condition a frequent issue for clinicians. For treatment patient undergoes mechanical reperfusion of the affected area of the heart and often uses potent antithrombotic agents. Ischemic‐reperfusion injury can happen consequently because of cellular mechanisms (like calcium overload in cardiomyocytes, excessive generation of reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial damage and others). It was discovered that cardiomyocytes can resist ischemic‐reperfusion injury because of specific mechanisms inherent to these cells; ability was named ‘cardio protection’. For future use for prevention and treatment of this health issue, research has been carried out on experimental heart conditioning and pre‐conditioning (it has low possibility of application in clinical practice), new pharmacological preparations are being searched for and their effectiveness is being verified in terms of their ability to induce a cardio protective effect.