1999 Update: ACC/AHA Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction: Executive Summary and Recommendations

The American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction have been reviewed over the past 2.5 years since their initial publication in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (1996;28:1328–1428) to ensure their continued relevancy. The guidelines have been updated to include the most significant advances that have occurred in the management of patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) during that time frame. This update was developed to keep the guidelines current without republishing the entire document. This effort represents a new procedure of the ACC/AHA Task Force on Practice Guidelines. These guidelines will be reviewed and updated as necessary until it is deemed appropriate to revise and republish the entire document.The guidelines, incorporating the update, are available on the Web sites of both the American College of Cardiology (www.acc.org) and the American Heart Association (www.americanheart.org). In the Web site version, deleted text is indicated by strikeout, and new/revised text is presented as double-underlined type. Reprints of the original document with the revised sections appended are available from both organizations (see information below).The following is a listing of the recommendations made by the ACC/AHA Task Force on Practice Guidelines in the ACC/AHA Task Force Report “ACC/AHA Guidelines for the Management of Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction.” More detailed information regarding the evidence and the rationale for these recommendations can be found in the full text of the guidelines themselves, which appears in the November 1996 and September 1999 (update) issues of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. As in previous guidelines, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have used the following classification system in which indications for a diagnostic procedure, a particular therapy, or intervention are designated as:Class I: Conditions for …