Prior to the TIMI III trial, patients with non-Q-wave myocardial infarction were usually treated in the same way patients with Q-wave myocardial infarction were treated prior to the advent of thrombolytic therapy. Neither heparin therapy nor thrombolytic therapy was routinely employed, although knowledge of the role of thrombosis in some patients with this condition had raised the possibility that one or both approaches might be helpful. Although the early prognosis was favorable, awareness that the longer-term prognosis was as serious as that following Q-wave myocardial infarction had led to increasing use of follow-up coronary angiography to identify patients for whom PTCA or CABG might be useful. Whether or not revascularization improved prognosis in these patients had not been established.