Pharmacological Treatments for Acute Coronary Syndrome

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There are various treatments for acute coronary syndrome to prevent the occurrence of an acute myocardial infarction. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the current research of the pharmacological treatments of this condition and to evaluate the relevance of this research in relation to the practise of paramedics.
The term acute myocardial infarction is used when talking about myocardial necrosis in a setting consistent with myocardial ischemia (Steg, et al., 2012). Acute myocardial infarctions are the major cause of disability and death worldwide. Myocardial infarctions can be one of the first signs of acute coronary syndrome and they can also occur repeatedly in patients that have an ongoing coronary artery disease (Thygesen, et al., 2012).
Atherothrombosis is the pathophysiologic hallmark of acute coronary syndrome which can lead to an acute myocardial infarction. Platelet aggregation is one of the major reasons why ACS occurs, arterial plaque builds up over time from products such as lipids, cholesterol and fibrin. The vasa vasorum …show more content…

It can take two to four hours or even longer for complete necrosis of the myocardial cell at risk. After a myocardial infarction it can take at least five weeks to heal the myocardium (Thygesen, et al., 2012). However if a patient goes into cardiac arrest the mortality outcomes for patients that have been resuscitated that were admitted to an intensive care unit are still high. Over the past decade in New Zealand and Australia patients admitted to the intensive care unit in regards to a cardiac arrest have remained relatively unchanged in over a decade as 46% of patients were admitted in 2003 and 48% of patients were admitted in 2012 (Eastwood, Schneide, Suzuki, Bailey, & Bellomo,

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