To a great extent, the probability of surviving a heart attack depends on the treatment applied during its first hour of occurrence. A common practice consists of having a patient chew gum containing acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin. The platelet anti-clotting effect of this substance (its consequent blood thinning capability), may reduce the death risk by 25%.  When dealing with a heart attack, time is of the essence: the sooner emergency therapy is started, the lesser the cardiac damage and the risk of death.

Measures taken in a coronary emergency center are numerous, and include:

• Relieving pain (morphine).

• Oxygen administration.

• Nitroglycerin infusion.

• Use of drugs to decrease oxygen consumption of the cardiac muscle.

After conducting these immediate and initial therapies, certain surgical procedures may also be undertaken during the first hours after the attack:

• Thrombolitic therapy: infusing substances that dissolve obstruction inside the coronary arteries.

• Angioplasty: inserting a balloon into the coronary arteries through a plastic catheter, an attempt is made to reactivate blood circulation by inflating the balloon, which presses against the artery wall and widens it.

• Bypass: an alternative circulatory pathway is created in which blood passes through the juncture of connecting arteries.

All severe cardiac seizures require hospitalization ranging from two to six weeks. A period of physical rehabilitation should follow. The same medications are used as in emergency therapy, but are administered differently. In post-heart attack therapy the importance of platelet anti-aggregation drugs (acetylsalicylic acid, or aspirin) is steadily increasing.