Fibrinolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction, even with the most efficient regimens available, is fraught with a substantial proportion of failures to reopen the occluded vessel. The term rescue percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) has been introduced to describe an attempt to mechanically recanalize the infarct vessel if fibrinolytic reperfusion fails. Despite the intuitive appeal and widespread use of rescue PTCA, only a limited amount of data (mostly observational retrospective data) is available to confirm the clinical benefit of this therapeutic option.