Left ventricular aneurysm in the African.

Left ventricular aneurysm is a very rare finding in the African and it is the purpose of this paper to describe four such cases, including one following coronary thrombosis. Sternberg (1914) has shown that 85 per cent of cardiac aneurysms in white patients follow on myocardial infarction. A different picture is presented in the African. In a series of fifteen African patients with left ventricular aneurysm, Jacobs (1952) found that none were due to coronary thrombosis, whereas his 65 cases of aneurysm in white patients were all due to this cause. The low incidence of coronary thrombosis (and consequently of left ventricular aneurysm) in the African appears to be due to the notable absence of severe coronary atherosclerosis (Wainwright, 1958). This last observation has also been the experience of workers at other centres in Africa (Becker, 1946; Higginson and Pepler, 1954; and Gelfand, 1948).