| Summary: | I. SUMMARY Background: Iron is an essential element necessary for many physiological processes involving oxygen transport, DNA-synthesis and ATP-formation. The fate of iron in the organism is tightly regulated especially at the absorption and distribution level probably mainly due to lack of specific active iron excretion mechanism. Any derangement of iron homeostatis may lead to appearance of free (unbound or loosely bound) iron, which can catalyse reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by Haber-Weiss chemistry. Cardiovascular diseases, particularly coronary heart disease (CHD), remain notwithstanding recent scientific advances important therapeutic problem. The most serious form of CHD represents acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The pathophysiology of AMI involves in most cases initial ischaemic period caused by coronary blood flow derangement due to a thrombus formation. Ischaemia alters substantially tissue homeostasis with subsequent cytosolic free iron appearance. Reconstitution of coronary blood flow (reperfusion) represents the only way for myocardial tissue recovery although on the other hand, it is linked with a release of free redox-active iron in the circulation and formation of ROS both intracellularly as well extracellularly. Iron chelators are a large group of drugs with very...
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