Exogenous bradykinin was administered to pigs in which an experimental infarction was evoked by ischemia and reperfusion. Ischemia (45 min) was induced in a closed-chest model with a balloon catheter in the left anterior descending artery, reperfusion by deflating and removing the balloon. The pigs were treated with saline (n = 11) or bradykinin (0.1 mg/kg in 30 min) infusion (n = 10) during the last 15 min of the ischemic period and the first 15 min of reperfusion. During ischemia, heart rate increased in the saline group to 120 +/- 9% of the initial value (p less than 0.05) and in the bradykinin group to 155 +/- 13% (p less than 0.05). After reperfusion, the rate-pressure product was increased in both groups. The increase of arterial creatine kinase levels was significantly less in the bradykinin-treated group. However, the catecholamine and purine levels were increased, as was the plasma renin activity when compared with the saline group. Two weeks after the infarction, six pigs had died in each group. In three out of five surviving saline-treated pigs and one out of four surviving bradykinin-treated pigs, a sustained ventricular tachyarrhythmia was inducible after programmed electrical stimulation. In conclusion, although systemically administered bradykinin caused a temporary increase in myocardial ischemia, it did reduce the (enzymatic indices of) infarct size. Therefore, the beneficial effects, previously found for ACE-inhibitors might at least partially be related to the potentiation of endogenous bradykinin.