Intracoronary Thrombolysis in no Flow after Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention in Acute Myocardial Infarction

Introduction: Mechanical revascularization of the infarct-related artery (IRA) is the most effective treatment modality in ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).No-reflow occurs in ∼8.8-10% of cases of primary percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI) in STEMI patients. Intracoronary tenectaplase was used when there was huge thrombus causing no flow in coronary artery following primary PCI in STEMI patients. Methods: Five hundred and eighty primary PCI patients were studied over a period of two years i.e. January 2016 to December 2017. Drug eluting stents were used in all cases. Majority of our patients (>90%) came 6 hours after onset of chest pain. There were many patients where there was no flow even after mechanical thrombus aspiration and pharmacological vasodilator therapy. We have given 20 mg of tenectaplase through microcatheter in those cases. Results: There were 44 cases of no flow in our series (7.75%). TIMI 3 Flow was reestablished in thirty two patients after intracoronary tenectaplase (72%). Amongst twelve failure cases LAD involvement was most common eight cases. RCA was involved in four patients. One month mortality rate in no flow group was 50% and 6.25% in successful recanalization group. One year mortality was 12.5% in successful recanalization group and 66% in no flow group. Both were statistically significant. Conclusion: Refractory no reflow during primary PCI in STEMI is associated with high mortality and morbidity. There is no established strategy to solve this phenomenon. Intracoronary thrombolysis is an option to salvage these patients.