Coronary Acute Coronary Syndrome

Cardiovascular diseases represent the leading cause of mortality in pregnancy. They are classified as direct (acute onset disease) or indirect (worsening of pre-existing cardiac disease). This overview is focused on acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in pregnancy and the post-partum period. ACS in this setting is a rare condition, but in the last two decades its incidence has grown. This phenomenon may be partially due to a higher diagnostic accuracy secondary to the advent of troponin monitoring and increasing availability of catheter laboratories. On the other hand, pregnancy is a condition that may worsen the presence of atherosclerotic disease (AD) or impair coronary blood flow, yielding spasm, thrombus formation or spontaneous dissection. Finally, the increased pregnancies in women over 35 years who already have cardiac risk factors is a growing phenomenon.