Plasma cephalins of patients with acute myocardial infarction.

In the plasma of patients with acute myocardial infarction the values for phosphatidyl ethanolamine are on the average 50% to 100% higher than in patients with chronic coronary heart disease and up to 400% higher than in normal individuals. Those for phosphatidyl serine are about 50% higher than in patients with chronic coronary heart disease and up to 300% higher than in normal individuals. Expressed in percentages of total phospholipids, the share of phosphatidyl ethanolamine in acute myocardial infarction is about twice as high as in chronic coronary heart disease and three times as high as in healthy persons. The share of phosphatidyl serine is about 50% higher than in patients with chronic coronary heart disease and also almost 300% higher than in healthy persons. Following the acute incident the values for the cephalins, both phosphatidyl ethanolamine and phosphatidyl serine, decrease slowly. Phosphatidyl ethanolamine reaches the level found in patients with chronic coronary heart disease in about 4 weeks, phosphatidyl serine in about 1 week.