Does Cyclosporine Protect Against Myocardial Reperfusion Injury?

Some laboratory evidence suggests that arterial reperfusion can cause mitochondrial dysfunction by increasing membrane permeability, leading to the loss of the membrane potential. Cyclosporine is known to inhibit this mitochondrial dysfunction. Investigators performed this pilot study to test whether cyclosporine would improve outcomes after reperfusion therapy. They randomized patients with acute ST-segment–elevation MI to receive cyclosporine (30 patients) or normal saline (28 patients) before undergoing reperfusion by percutaneous coronary intervention. All patients had presented within 12 hours of symptom onset and had a completely occluded artery at the time of catheterization. The primary endpoint was the size of the infarction as mea…