We are currently conducting a study in patients following primary PCI, where we quantify infarct size and reperfusion injury by cardiac MRI, and in parallel measure inflammation and leukocyte populations at different time points. We chose time 0 before reperfusion, 15, 30, 90 min, 24h and 3 months post infarct/reperfusion. We also looked at Th1, Th2 and Th17 response. Regarding cytokines, it is a question of money how many you can quantify and how many time points. Using Mesoscale assays from MSD for example, you can measure 30 cytokines in parallel from microliter serum. The question is however, what exactly are you interested in ? Obviously measuring some Th1 cytokines and some Th2 cytokines would give you a representative selection. TNF-alpha, IL-6 and IL-10 are regarded as very important regulators in the acute and chronic inflammation setting. We also quantify lymphocyte subsets etc.., in order to understand the dynamic better.
I suggest collecting the plasma (from blood in EDTA ) from patients with AMI, while collecting it for other lab tests. The plasma could be stored at -80 degrees and then various cytokines of interest could be estimated from it (TNF alpha, IL1Beta, AngII, IL-10 etc) using commercial ELISA kits. One late stage pro-inflammatory cytokine of interest is HMGB1. It is found to be a good indicator of the subsequent mortality post-AMI. Good luck !