AIM: To investigate the effects of pretreatment of captopril on the infarct size and myocardial cell apoptosis in rabbits. METHODS: Rabbits were randomly divided into sham-operated control group (SO), acute infarct group (AI) and captopril pretreatment group (CP). The rabbits of CP group were treated with captopril (25 mg·kg -1 .d -1 ) for 1 week before harvest. The left circumflex branch of coronary (LCX) was ligated to develop acute ischemic model. The systolic and diastolic function of left ventr...