Impact of Ischemic Post-conditioning During Primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention on Left Ventricular Remodeling and Global Systolic Function in Patients Presenting With ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Among re-perfusion strategies for the management of ST-elevation myocardial infarction , primary per-cutaneous coronary intervention is the preferred one within 120 minutes from the first medical contact.However , restoration of the coronary blood flow can paradoxically reduce the beneficial effects of myocardial re-perfusion , a phenomenon known as myocardial re-perfusion injury.Ischemic post-conditioning has been described as a measure for myocardial salvage , performed by making cycles of briefly interrupted perfusion during the early moments of coronary re-flow.Post-conditioning may be performed immediately after the early re-flow by creating cycles of interrupted inflation & deflation of the angioplasty balloon in patients undergoing primary per-cutaneous coronary intervention.In this study investigators aim to compare the left ventricular remodeling and global systolic function immediately & 6 months after re-perfusion between two groups of 100 patients presenting with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction, using ischemic post-conditioning in one group of patients undergoing primary per-cutaneous coronary intervention (n=50 patients) by making 4 cycles of repeated occlusion & re-perfusion 30-second each by inflation/deflation of an appropriately sized per-cutaneous trans-luminal coronary angioplasty balloon.The other group will be investigated after re-perfusion by primary per-cutaneous coronary intervention without ischemic post-conditioning (n=50 patients)