[Cardiac rupture during exercise testing].

Cardiac rupture during stress testing is uncommon and rarely reported, with less than ten cases described in the scientific literature. We present a patient with left ventricular free wall rupture one week after a nontransmural acute myocardial infarction (AMI), when undergoing conventional stress testing. A 70-year-old man, ex-smoker, with no other cardiovascular risk factors, was admitted in May 2002 for precordial pain of coronary characteristics, lasting 1 h, with minimal ST segment depression in LII, LIII, and aVF, and elevated concentrations of creatine kinase MB (CK-MB) isoenzyme (1256/65 U/L). He was diagnosed with non-Q-wave AMI and treated with LETTERS TO THE EDITOR