Reston, Va.—Two things happen following a heart attack—necrosis (normal cell death) and apoptosis (programmed cell death)—and both are bad. Now researchers in Japan have found that a single intravenous dose of the hormone erythropoietin (EPO) immediately after myocardial infarction (heart attack) can drastically reduce or eliminate apoptosis and thereby limit the amount of damage to the heart, according to an article in the October issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
