Left main coronary artery ostial stenosis: clinical markers, angiographic recognition and distinction from left main disease.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C M de Castro.
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Two patients with a large posterior pericardial effusion after cardiac surgery presented with electrocardiographic precordial Q waves without evidence of myocardial infarction. Resolution of the pericardial fluid resulted in the disappearance of the Q waves. Changes in conductivity and orientation of the heart within the pericardial space, along with a decrease in QRS voltage, could lead to the loss of initial R waves in the precordial leads, eventually resulting in a QS complex. Care should be taken in interpreting the electrocardiogram after cardiac surgery in patients with a large posterior pericardial effusion. The clinical course along with serial electrocardiographic and echocardiographic tracings should be helpful in identifying this false infarction pattern.
A patient with tetralogy of Fallot who underwent a successful Blalock shunt procedure as a child was evaluated 28 years later because of clinical deterioration. Results of cardiac catheterization and angiography disclosed, in addition to a functioning shunt, evidence of an infundibular, subvalvular tumor and a large anastomosis between the left circumflex coronary artery and the bronchial arteries of the right lung with the possibility of "coronary steal". At operation, the Blalock and coronary-to-bronchial artery anastomoses were ligated; and total correction was performed including resection of the pulmonary valve and infundibulum, excision of the tumor, closure of the ventricular septal defect, and application of an outflow patch to enlarge the pulmonary annulus. The patient was discharged nine days after surgical correction.
The findings in a patient with surgically proven Lutembacher's syndrome (coexisting mitral stenosis and atrial septal defect) are presented. In addition to a typical pattern of mitral stenosis, the preoperative echocardiogram revealed paradoxical septal motion, thereby providing, prior to cardiac catheterization, a basis for the suspicion of an associated lesion due to diastolic overload of the right ventricle.
By far the most frequent pathologic condition preceding myocardial infarction is coronary atherosclerosis. Because the great majority of patients who are first seen with acute myocardial infarction have atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, there is usually little thought given to other causes, except in children where congenital coronary anomalies are considered. However, there are multiple other conditions, albeit far rarer than atherosclerosis, that can result in clinical acute myocardial infarction, and a classification of these other conditions, an anatomic-pathophysiologic one, was developed from illustrative material from the files of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. This classification is an inclusive listing of all conditions, however unusual, that can result in acute myocardial infarction.
This study correlates the anatomic pathologic coronary anatomy found by arteriography in each of three groups of symptomatic patients, all with coronary artery disease, divided according to the magnitude of ST-segment depression after an adequate submaximal treadmill exercise test. Group I consists of 45 patients with ST-segement depression of 2 mm. or more, Group II of 31 patients with ST-segment depression between 1.0 and 1.9 mm., and Group III, 30 patients with 0 to 0.9 mm. ST-segment depression. Seventy-five per cent of the patients in Group I had critical lesions defined as (1) 75 per cent or greater narrowing of left main coronary artery (LMCA), (2) 75 per cent or greater obstructive left anterior descending and left circumflex coronary artery both proximal to any major branching, the so-called left main equivalent (LME) lesions, and (3) 90 per cent or more obstruction of the left anterior descending coronary proximal to any major branches. Of patients in Group I, 24 PER CENT Had LMCA lesions, 29 per cent had LAD lesions. Eight-two per cent of Group I patients had two- or three-vessel disease. All patients with LMCA lesions had 2 mm. or more ST-segment depression. Over 95 per cent of patients with "critical" lesions is less than 5 per cent in the presence of an adequate aubmaximal treadmill test that shows less than 1 mm. of ST-segment depression, it is concluded that in such patients with medically controllable angina, coronary arteriography is not necessary.
Thirty-five consecutives patients with classic or definite rheumatoid arthritis underwent echocardiography to evaluate the motion of the anterior mitral valve leaflet. Adequate echocardiograms were obtained in 31 patients. All 31 patients showed normal valve motion and a normal EF slope. If meticulous technique was not observed, a falsely low value for the EF slope was obtained and a normal slope was found when the method was improved. This study shows that echocardiographic abnormalities of the anterior mitral valve leaflet rarely, if ever, occur in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, provided that careful attention to recording method is observed.