UNLABELLED Soft-tissue attenuation artifacts generally appear as fixed perfusion-scan defects. Gated (99m)Tc-tetrofosmin SPECT may help differentiate myocardial infarction (MI) from artifacts, as fixed defects with decreased function (wall motion and thickening) probably represent MI, whereas attenuation artifacts represent preserved function. METHODS Ungated stress and gated rest (99m)Tc-tet...

Thrombolysis is the gold standard of treatment for acute myocardial infarction (MI), however can be associated with haemorrhagic complications. To date, splenic rupture following thrombolysis has only been reported in those with an associated history of major trauma or splenomegaly. We report a case of a 47-year old female who developed splenic rupture following thrombolysis treatment with no h...

A case of 'primary' mitral valve prolapse is documented. The patient was admitted with right-sided hemiplegia of sudden onset, probably caused by a cerebral embolus from the mitral valve. He also had a painless transmural inferior myocardial infarction (MI) of indeterminate age which was diagnosed electrocardiographically and on left ventricular cine angiography. Since selective coronary arteri...

There are numerous clinical factors that have been identified that are associated with an adverse outcome after acute myocardial infarction (MI). These factors include female gender, the presence of severe left ventricular dysfunction or congestive heart failure, a history of diabetes mellitus, age 70 years, infarct location (anterior versus inferior), and patency of the infarct-related artery....

Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rTPA) is one of the main portions of acute ischemic stroke management, but unfortunately has some complications. Myocardial infarction (MI) is a hazardous complication of administration of intravenous rTPA that has been reported recently. A 78-year-old lady was admitted for elective coronary artery bypass graft surgery. On the second day of admission, s...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to assess the role of Purkinje fibers in monomorphic, post-infarction ventricular tachycardia (VT). BACKGROUND Ventricular fibrillation and polymorphic VT in the setting of acute myocardial infarction (MI) may be triggered by ectopy arising from Purkinje fibers. METHODS From among a group of 81 consecutive patients with post-infarction monomorphic ...

BACKGROUND The impact of primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for acute ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) on the incidence of ischemic mitral regurgitation (IMR) is unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS Between January 2000 and December 2004, 318 patients presenting with first acute STEMI were enrolled in this study. Two hundred and twelve (66.67%) patients received PCI (PCI group)...

AIMS Knowledge of right ventricular (RV) function may be crucial in diagnosis and proper management of patients with suspected acute myocardial infarction (MI). Standard echocardiography has several drawbacks, tissue Doppler echocardiography (TDE) and real-time three-dimensional echocardiography (RT3DE) could be used for evaluation of the RV performance. The purpose of this study was to assess ...

BACKGROUND Although brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) levels are shown to be an important prognostic factor in patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI), the relationship between arrhythmias and BNP levels is not known. This study assessed whether baseline clinical factors, N-terminal-proBNP (NT-proBNP) levels and electrocardiographic patterns of acute inferior MI are associated with greater...

A 72-year-old elderly male smoker with a known history of hypertension presented with a six day history of chest pain. His blood pressure at presentation was 110/70 mmHg and there was no audible murmur. ECG showed Q waves in the inferior leads (Figure 1A) and troponin level was elevated (14 μg/L). Chest X-ray showed cardiomegaly with linear atelectasis in both lung bases.  The working diagnosi...