This review highlights that while reperfusion is essential for salvaging ischemic myocardium, lethal reperfusion injury remains a significant clinical challenge with most targeted therapies failing to show benefit in clinical trials.
Return of blood flow after periodic ischemia is often accompanied by myocardial injury, commonly known as lethal reperfusion injury (RI). Experimental studies have shown that 50% of muscle die of ischemia and another 50% die because of reperfusion. It is characterized by myocardial, vascular, or electrophysiological dysfunction that is induced by the restoration of blood flow to previously ischemic tissue. This phenomenon reduces the efficiency of the present modalities used to combat the ischemic myocardium. Moreover, despite an improved understanding of the pathophysiology of this process and encouraging preclinical trials of multiple agents, most of the clinical trials to prevent RI have been disappointing and leaves us at ground zero to explore newer approaches.
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Shah et al. (2017) conducted a review in Myocardial reperfusion injury. Reperfusion injury prevention strategies was evaluated.
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