Reduced fibrinolytic activity in coronary heart disease in basal conditions and after exercise

Fibrinolysis may be impaired in coronary heart disease patients. 20 coronary heart disease patients and 10 control subjects were examined for tissue-plasminogen activator activity, tissue-plasminogen activator antigen, fast tissue-plasminogen activator inhibitor and other fibrinolytic and haemostatic parameters including antigenic and functional protein C. Both patient and control groups were similar in age and smoking habits. All of these patients had a myocardial infarction between 1-3 months before this study. Assays were evaluated before and after an exercise test. Prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time, protein C, plasminogen, alpha 2-antiplasmin, fibrinogen/fibrin degradation products and contact-activated fibrinolysis were similar before and after exercise in both groups. Fibrinolytic activity assayed by the euglobulin lysis time and fibrin-plate lysis methods was decreased in the patient group as compared with the control group but the difference was not significant. In basal conditions, tissue-plasminogen activator activity was defective in 50% of the coronary heart disease patients (p less than 0.01) and after exercise this percentage rose to 77% (p less than 0.01). However, tissue-plasminogen activator antigen in the coronary heart disease group was similar to that of the control group, both before and after exercise. The activity of the tissue-plasminogen activator inhibitor was persistently increased in coronary heart disease though this increase was not statistically significant. It is concluded that in coronary heart disease patients there is a defective fibrinolytic activity probably due to an increase in tissue-plasminogen activator inhibitor.