Syphilitic obstruction of coronary ostia successfully treated by endarterectomy.

Occlusion or narrowing of the coronary ostia by syphilitic aortitis is a rare disease. In 1950 Scharfman, Wallach, and Angrist, reviewing several large necropsy series, reported 935 cases of syphilitic aortitis in 33,176 necropsies. Of these, 24 had involvement of the coronary ostia. Effective treatment by endarterectomy has been reported by Blondeau and Dubost (1962), Michaud et al. (1963), and Connolly et al. (1964). In recent years we have encountered and successfully treated two such patients, in one of whom we were able to demonstrate the occlusion and successful postoperative result by cine-angiography.