Coronary arteriography was performed before and after the intracoronary injection of nitroglycerin to determine the presence or absence of spasm in patients within the first 12 hours of acute myocardial infarction. Coronary arterial spasm was demonstrated in six of fifteen (40%) acute myocardial infarctions associated with coronary artery disease. In five of the six instances the interval from ...

Coronary artery spasm in perioperative of coronary artery bypass graft surgery is a serious complication, with high rate mortality. Patient 51 years-old submitted to coronary artery bypass graft surgery without Extracorporeal Circulation. The patient evolved in 1st post operative (PO) day with enzymatic alteration and ST-elevation, developing soon afterwards in ventricular fibrillation, defibri...

BACKGROUND We reported less provoked spasm in the left circumflex artery (LCX) by acetylcholine testing compared with the left anterior descending artery (LAD) and right coronary artery (RCA), so we investigated the clinical characteristics of provoked spasm in the LCX by ergonovine (ER) testing.Methods and Results:We retrospectively analyzed 1,185 consecutive cases of intracoronary ER testing ...

Middle-aged female patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have an increased risk of coronary artery disease and myocardial infarction (MI). We report a case of left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) MI associated with severe coronary spasm in both the LAD and left circumflex artery, complicated with fracture of the distal wire within the microcatheter which was successfully re...

Myocardial infarction (MI) is an extremely common cause of chest pain. MI can be acute with ST elevation (STEMI) or non-STEMI (NSTEMI). Coronary artery spasm can be severe enough to cause occlusion of the coronary arteries particularly with an exaggerated response in regions of coronary atheroma and plaque ulceration. It is not uncommon for coronary spasm to be mistaken with acute thrombotic oc...

Papillary muscle rupture usually occurs as a catastrophic complication of acute myocardial infarction in patients with coronary artery stenosis; it is therefore less common in patients without coronary artery stenosis. We report the case of a 67-year old woman without coronary artery stenosis who suffered an acute anterolateral papillary muscle rupture and was successfully treated with mitral v...

BACKGROUND Increased activity of Rho-kinase causes hypercontraction of vascular smooth muscle and has been implicated as playing a pathogenetic role in divergent cardiovascular diseases such as coronary artery spasm. We examined whether an intracoronary infusion of fasudil, a selective Rho-kinase inhibitor, would attenuate coronary vasoconstrictor responses to acetylcholine (ACh) in patients wi...