[Personal experience with determination of endogenous, digoxin-like substances in patients with myocardial infarct and other cardiopathies].

A group of 65 patients with acute infarction of myocardium (IM) who were not treated with digitalis preparations were subdued to examination to the presence of digitalis-like substances in their urine by means of radioimmuno-analytic method with use of anti-digoxin antibodies. The control group was constituted of 69 healthy subjects. Patients afflicted with IM had significantly increased concentrations of DLS in serum in comparison with health subjects. No significant relations of DLS to the activity of creatinkinase, IM localisation, occurrence of dysrhythmias, heart insufficiency and IM mortality were discovered. An increase in DLS in the blood of patients with acute IM probably coincides with a decreased cardiac output, with the activation of the stress axis and retention of sodium and fluids. The second examined group of patients was constituted of 20 subjects with other severe cardiopathies (inborn and acquired heart defects, chronic ischemic heart disease, inflammatory and degenerative diseases of the heart, and hypertension), who were subdued to catheter examinations. The authors discovered no significant differences of DLS concentrations in the blood during catheterization of individual compartments of inferior vena cava, superior vena cava, and the right ventricle. They were not successful in defining the particular site of DLS secretion on the basis of this examination. The authors pay attention to interaction of DLS during the radioimmuno-analytic examination of the digoxin serum concentration.