Successful Management of Mechanical Complications Following Acute Myocardial Infarction

Rupture of the heart as a complication of myocardial infarction is one of the most common causes of in-hospital mortality. Rupture of the free wall of the ventricle or interventricular septum has a poor prognosis when treated conservatively. So, rupture of the heart after infarction requires prompt diagnosis and early surgical repair despite the high overall incidence of early operative mortality before hemodynamic deterioration and multiorgan failures develop. Rupture of the left ventricle results in pseudoaneurysm if the overlying pericardium adhers to the surface of the heart. Pseudoaneurysms which rarely develop after infarction, tend to rupture. Their presence alone is an indicator for operation because of the very poor prognosis following rupture. We experienced successful management of 2 rare complications after acute myocardial infarction: ventricular septal defect and pseudoaneurysm. The first patient was a 49-year-old man who had an apical septal defect. His electrocardiogram showed Q wave in leads V2-V6, II, III, and aVF but a coronary angiogram showed normal findings. He was successfully treated by patch closure of the septal defect. The second patient was a 65-year-old female who had false aneurysm of the left ventricle. She had neither chest pain nor abnormality on the electrocardiogram. A coronary angiogram showed complete occlusion of the distal circumflex artery. Under cardiopulmonary bypass, the neck of the aneurysmal sac was successfully closed with a prolene suture.