Cutaneous petechiae in fatal coronary artery disease.

coronary artery. In some there is little to indicate why or how the patient actually died, as the only cardiac lesions found are of long standing. The fatal disturbance is often of function rather than of structure and in such cases the post-mortem diagnosis of acute coronary insufficiency is made by implication rather than observation. In seven necropsies on cases of acute coronary death cutaneous petechiae were observed at sites commonly associated with referred pain of cardiac origin (Fig. 1). No such lesions were observed in any deaths not of coronary origin. These petechiae were all outside the area of cutaneous post-mortem hypostasis and in no case w as there any evidence of generalized haemorrhagic disease. It is suggested that this sign may