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Acute myocardial infarction (AM!) remains the greatest threat to health in our society and is the most common cause of death in the United States and in many other Western industrialized countries. Recent data demonstrate that mortality from Ml is continuing to decline. In these days of more aggressive management of acute MI (AMI) there has been a resurgence of interest in advances in thrombolytic therapy. However, observational studies of patients with AM! have shown that women sustaining an AM! have a worse prognosis than men. AMI is the number-one killer of women in the United States; approximately 247,000 of more than 520,000 deaths due to AM! that occur each year are among women, and almost one-third of the women are younger than forty-five years old. While there have been great advances in thrombolytic therapy, these advances have benefited men to a more significant degree than they have benefited women. The purpose of this paper is to critically review the efficacy of thrombolytic therapy in women with AMI with consideration of some of the key components of its effectiveness: mortality, bleeding risk, infarct-artery patency, ventricular function, and cardiac arrhythmia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]