Conservative Management of Subacute Contained Left Ventricular Rupture after Acute Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

Left ventricular free wall rupture (LVFWR) is a near-fatal mechanical complication of acute myocardial infarction in which an early diagnosis and emergency surgery should be of utmost priority for successful treatment. LVFWR is generally perceived to be universally fatal. Majority of LVFWR patients developing cardiac tamponade die rapidly, while in minority of cases the development of tamponade may be sufficiently slow to allow for diagnosis and successful intervention. In this article, the authors report a case of a 63-year-old male patient diagnosed with an inferoposterior wall myocardial infarction treated with early reperfusion thrombolytic therapy presenting 3 days later with diagnosis of subacute LVFWR. Patient had a history of relapse of chest pain which was severe and prolonged with 2 to 3 mm saddle-shaped ST-segment elevation in lateral leads, detected on a routine electrocardiogram, which led to an urgent bedside transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE). TTE showed regional wall motion abnormality in form of akinetic basal inferior-wall, a small echodense pericardial effusion, and a canalicular tract from endocardium to pericardium, through which color-Doppler examination suggested blood crossing the myocardial wall. A cardiac magnetic resonance imaging further reinforced the possibility of contained LVFWR.