Antithrombotic therapy of unstable angina and non-Q-wave myocardial infarction

Unstable angina and non-Q-wave myocardial infarction still represent an uns olved problem for clinicians, owing to their unpredictable evolution and hi gh incidence of coronary events in the follow-up. Traditional antithrombotic agents, unfractionated heparin and aspirin, have been proved to be highly effective, but show some important limitations. N ew potent antithrombotic therapy have been studied to improve their efficac y, with encouraging results. Among these drugs, low molecular weight hepari ns (for subcutaneous administration) and inhibitors of platelet glycoprotei n receptor IIb/IIIa (for intravenous, and possibly oral, administration) ar e the most promising and are now under extensive investigation. (C) 1999 El sevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.