Amniotic fluid embolism

Abstract

Attwood traces the earliest possible description of a case of amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) to 1825. The next case was described by Meyer some 101 years later. Not until 1941 was this obstetric catastrophe recognised as constituting a true syndrome with its own clinical and pathological characteristics. Any combination of sudden and profound shock, dyspnoea, cyanosis, apprehension, seizures, and the failure of rapid blood coagulation may herald the clinical onset of an AFE. Liban was the first to report the detection of squamous cells throughout the systemic circulation, an observation which was not explained at the time. Many have commented upon the ominous fetal heart pattern that almost invariably accompanies AFE if the fetus is in-utero at the time of the embolus.