Effects of Carnitine on 6-Month Incidence of Mortality and Heart Failure in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction

Background: The carnitine therapy for acute myocardial infarction has significant metabolic improvement capacity due to intrinsic mechanisms. We did a trial to compare carnitine with standard therapy in patients with acute myocardial infarction. Material and methods: 98 patients with acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction were randomly assigned to carnitine (n=45) and control (n=53) group. The primary endpoint was 30-day mortality and re-infarction during 96 h of hospitalization. Results: By 6 months, 9,7 % pts in carnitine group and 12,3 % of pts in control group had died. There were significantly fewer re-infarctions and heart failure complications in patients of carnitine group than in control group (t<0,05). Conclusions: carnitine therapy reduced MI mortality in compare with standard therapy and reduced the rate of re-infarction during hospitalization and heart failure complications after 6 months by 15,7%