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B ecause total coronary artery occlusion was found in the early hours of transmural myocardial infarction, most of our research interest and treatment strategies focus on epicardial coronary arteries. 1 Little attention, however, is paid to the coronary microvasculature. When a coronary artery is occluded, detrimental changes occur in the cardiac capillaries and arterioles. After relief of the occlusion, blood flow to the ischemic tissue may still be impeded, a phenomenon known as no reflow. This article attempts to provide an in-depth understanding of this phenomenon from the laboratory bench to the clinical arena.
Rezkalla et al. (Tue,) studied this question.