INTRODUCTION Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) may culminate in sudden death by ventricular fibrillation, cardiogenic shock, and cardiac rupture. We present a case of postinfarction rupture treated by direct closure and coronary artery bypass grafting after thrombolytic therapy. CASE REPORT A 67-year-old woman with cardiac risk factors of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and being post-menopa...

BACKGROUND Papillary muscle rupture is one of the catastrophic mechanical complications following myocardial infarction. Rupture leads to acute mitral valve regurgitation, pulmonary edema, and cardiogenic shock. Survival is dependent on prompt recognition and surgical intervention. CASES REPORT We present two cases where acute myocardial infarction was complicated by papillary muscle rupture ...

BACKGROUND Although rupture of an atherosclerotic plaque is considered to be the cause of most acute coronary syndromes, the mechanism of plaque rupture is controversial. METHODS AND RESULTS To test the hypothesis that plaque rupture occurs at sites of high circumferential stress in the diseased vessel, the distribution of stress was analyzed in 24 coronary artery lesions. Histological specim...

Myocardial rupture of the left ventricle after an acute myocardial infarction resulted in the formation of a massive pseudoaneurysm in a middle aged man. Cross sectional echocardiography was useful in identifying the defect which was successfully closed at operation nine years after its formation.

Doppler echocardiography was used to evaluate the features of interventricular septal rupture in six patients with acute myocardial infarction and to substantiate the hemodynamic data and morphologic findings at surgery or autopsy. Although echocardiographic visualization of the septal rupture was obtained in only two of the six patients, unusual Doppler flow signals were detected in the apical...

BACKGROUND Spotty superficial calcium deposits have been implicated in plaque vulnerability based on previous intravascular imaging studies. Biomechanical models suggest that microcalcifications between 5 and 65 µm in diameter can intensify fibrous cap stress, promoting plaque rupture. However, the 100- to 200-µm resolution of intravascular ultrasound limits its ability to discriminate single c...

The progressive nature of coronary atherosclerotic disease is often neglected in patients submitted to percutaneous coronary intervention. Very late (> 1 year) myocardial infarctions affecting the treated myocardial territory are usually attributed to device related complications. We report the case of a patient with acute inferior wall ST-elevation myocardial infarction, who had a thrombotic o...

The ground motion and damage caused by the 2015 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake can be characterized by their widespread distributions to the east. Evidence from strong ground motions, regional acceleration duration, and teleseismic waveforms indicate that rupture directivity contributed significantly to these distributions. This phenomenon has been thought to occur only if a strike-slip or dip-slip r...

BACKGROUND The rupture of the anterolateral papillary muscle is less common than the posteromedial papillary muscle since the anterolateral muscle has dual blood supplies, while the posteromedial papillary muscle has a single blood supply. CASE PRESENTATION We present a case report of a 42 year old male presenting with heart failure being diagnosed to have mitral regurgitation from the partia...