Fibrinolytic Therapy with tPA Failed Because it was Based on a Flawed Concept-Juniper Publishers
JUNIPER PUBLISHERS - OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL OF CARDIOLOGY & CARDIOVASCULAR THERAPY Abstract Fibrinolytic therapy has become synonymous with tPA based on the belief that tPA alone was responsible for natural fibrinolysis. Although this assumption was belied from the outset by disappointing clinical results, it persisted, eventually causing fibrinolysis to be discredited and replaced by an endovascular procedure. Since time to reperfusion is the critical determinant of outcome, which in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) means within two hours, a time-consuming hospital procedure is ill-suited as first line treatment. For this purpose, fibrinolysis is better suited. The assumption that tPA is responsible for fibrinolysis is contradicted by published findings. Instead, tPA initiates fibrinolysis which is continued by urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) which has the dominant effect. tPA and uPA gene deletion and clot lysis studies showed the activators to have complementa