ANTICOAGULANTS IN CORONARY THROMBOSIS WITH MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION

Blumer¹ reported in 1937 that mural thrombi are present over the intracardial surface of the infarcted area in about half of the patients with cardiac infarction due to coronary occlusion. Fragments of such thrombi when detached produce clinically recognizable embolic phenomena in about 14 per cent of patients with cardiac infarction. Solandt and his co-workers² tied the descending branch of the left coronary artery in dogs and then infiltrated the myocardium at the tip of the ventricle with 2 cm. of 5 per cent sodium ricinoleate. Necropsies performed twenty-four hours later on a series of dogs thus treated invariably revealed macroscopic mural thrombi. A series of animals treated similarly except that they had received heparin showed damaged myocardium, necrotic endocardium but absence of mural thrombi. Neither macroscopic nor microscopic mural thrombi were found in this series. In these experiments necrosis and thrombus formation started almost as soon as