When faced with patients suffering a heart attack, doctors have two choices: inject them with medication to dissolve the blood clot (fibrinolytic therapy) or insert a small balloon to open the blocked artery (primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)).

Researchers have discovered one potential mechanism by which briefly cutting off, then restoring, blood flow to arteries prior to a heart attack lessens the damage caused, according to a study published today in the journal Cardiovascular Research.

According to new research, Crestor dramatically cut deaths, heart attacks and strokes in patients with healthy cholesterol levels but who had high levels of a protein associated with heart disease. The maker of Crestor, AstraZeneca, funded the study.

Researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have manipulated cell activity that occurs during the interruption of blood flow to strongly protect heart tissue in animal studies. The finding has the potential to become an emergency treatment for heart attack patients, particularly since already existing drugs might be pressed into service to produce the protective effects.

A new calcium scoring method may better predict a person’s risk of heart attack, according to a new multicenter study published in the June issue of the journal Radiology. Calcium coverage scoring takes into account not only the amount of calcified plaque build-up in the coronary arteries, but also its distribution.

Scientists at the Center for Translational Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have shown that a specific signaling protein is crucial to protecting the heart and helping it to adapt during a heart attack.

Recovery from heart attacks is best served by continuing to take prescribed medications. Yet more than half of patients who have had a heart attack stop taking these lifesaving medications within three years, according to results from a Mayo Clinic study presented today at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2007 in Orlando, Fla.

If you go to the hospital within one to two hours of the onset of symptoms of a heart attack, your chances of getting proper treatment are nearly 70 percent greater than those who wait 11 to 12 hours before seeking treatment, according to results presented today at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2007 in Orlando, Fla.

In a subset of patients suffering heart attack, adding stents to clot-busting medical therapy after the optimal treatment window ends isn't justified, say researchers from Duke University Medical Center.

North Carolina team of doctors, nurses, hospitals and emergency medical service workers has come up with a way to provide faster, more effective treatment for heart attack patients.

Compared with their counterparts a decade ago, today’s heart attack patients are receiving emergency angioplasty or clot-busting drugs to re-open clogged arteries at a far greater rate, but 10 percent of patients who could benefit from this life-saving treatment still do not receive it, according to a study published in The American Journal of Medicine by Yale and University of Michigan researchers.

Far more of today’s heart attack patients receive emergency angioplasty treatment or clot-busting drugs to re-open their clogged heart arteries than even a decade ago, a new study finds.