Fibrinopeptide A and sudden coronary death.

Fibrinopeptide A (FPA) concentrations were measured in blood taken by direct cardiac puncture from 31 patients who had died suddenly of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) and from 8 patients who had died suddenly of other causes. Mean FPA concentration in the IHD group was five times higher than that in the non-IHD group. This difference was almost entirely due to the high FPA level in the IHD subjects with a history of the disease. The FPA difference between the IHD and non-IHD groups is unlikely to have been due to differences in methods of resuscitation. A possible interpretation of the findings is that thrombin production causes or aggravates the course of events leading to sudden IHD death, particularly in subjects with a past history of IHD.