Reperfusion Injury

The standard clot busting emergency treatment for
heart attack and stroke causes reperfusion injury.
While saving thousands of lives, these treatments
can have serious side effects. When the clot
dissolves, the oxygen starved cells down stream of
the clot engage in a feeding frenzy that causes cell
death. Further, when these cells die they release
compounds that act on receptors on nearby living
cells and trigger a cascade of programmed cell
death (apoptosis).