The Prevention of Thromboembolism in Acute Coronary-Artery Disease

PRESENT treatment of coronary thrombosis includes, almost without fail, some prophylactic measure intended to prevent thromboembolic complications. This normally consists of one of the coumarin derivatives, heparin or a combination of these drugs. By these methods mortality has been cut approximately by half and thromboembolism to at least an equal degree.1 2 3 The inescapable conclusions are that all such patients should receive anticoagulants. An occasional report, however, suggests that not all victims of myocardial infarction need be so treated. Russek and his co-workers,4 for example, believe that it is possible to select the dangerously ill patients with a predictably high incidence . . .