The authors treated 100 consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction by primary or emergency coronary angioplasty. The „infarct“ lesion was in 44 patients in the area of the ramus interventricularis anterior, in 40 patients in the area of the right coronary artery and in 16 patients in the area of the ramus circumflexus. The authors implanted 71 stents of an average length of 20.8 mm. The procedural success rate was 93%, the mortality during hospitalization 6%. Two patients developed clinically significant haemorrhage in conjunction with administration of abciximab, two patients suffered a reinfarction while in hospital. None of the patients with intervention on the right coronary artery died, nor the patient who had primary angioplasty and was at first free from signs of heart failure. Coronary angioplasty is an effective and safe method in treatment of acute myocardial infarction. In patients with primary coronary angioplasty on the right coronary artery and in patients without initial signs of cardiac failure the risk of mortality during hospitalization is very low.

        Key words: acute myocardial infarction – primary angioplasty – stent - mortality