Author(s)

Jun Ho Lee, Eun-Seok Shin, Shin-Jae Kim, Jong Min Kim, Jung Won Hwang, Hector M. Garcia-Garcia, Patrick W. Serruys

Department of Cardiology, Ulsan University Hospital, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Ulsan, Korea.
Department of Interventional Cardiology, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

It is well known that the increase of necrotic core in previous atherosclerotic coronary artery disease is one of the conditions of vulnerable plaque. However, it is not known how fast necrotic core could decrease in a vulnerable plaque. We had 2 patients who had suffered from acute myocardial infarction and had large amount of necrotic core in their culprit lesions at baseline, which decreased markedly within 7 days. Also, they were clinically stable and asymptomatic over 1 year follow-up. It is first report to show mar-kedly decrease of necrotic core amount within only 7 days in culprit lesions of 2 cases of acute myocardial infarction with angiographically minimal lesions.

Vulnerable Plaque; IVUS; Acute Myocardial Infarction; Variant Angina

Lee, J. , Shin, E. , Kim, S. , Kim, J. , Hwang, J. , Garcia-Garcia, H. and Serruys, P. (2012) Rapid decrease of necrotic core after acute myocardial infarction. World Journal of Cardiovascular Diseases, 2, 95-98. doi: 10.4236/wjcd.2012.22015.