Procedures after Acute Myocardial Infarction

To the Editor: The recent explosion in invasive and noninvasive procedures of diagnosis, coupled with improved techniques of operative intervention, has resulted in their application in a highly noncritical fashion. Nowhere is this as evident as in cardiology. More and more patients in the early period (second or third week) of an uncomplicated, localized myocardial infarction without symptoms are subjected to stress tests, stress radionuclide evaluation, cardiac catheterization and angiography, and then revascularization surgery, all during the same hospital stay and usually in major centers. Surely there is a large body of data (composed of anecdotal reports and laboratory and. . . No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.