Thrombolysis in Acute Myocardial Infarction

Acute myocardial infarction is the most common cause of death in the United States and in almost all Western industrialized countries. Although unadjusted rates of mortality due to myocardial infarction in the United States have been falling in recent years, rates of mortality from all other causes have also been falling, so that the proportion of mortality caused by acute myocardial infarction has not changed. Mortality due to heart disease (mostly infarctions) accounted for 37 percent of all deaths for which a cause could be identified in 1950, for 39 percent in 1960, 1970, and 1980, and for 36 percent . . .