Apical ballooning syndrome and myocardial bridging in the patient presenting with pulmonary edema.

The apical ballooning syndrome is a relatively rare and underrecognized transient cardiomyopathy precipitated by emotional or physical stress. The role of myocardial bridging in its cause is unknown and extremely rarely reported. We present a case of a 68-year-old woman with apical ballooning syndrome and transient myocardial bridging of the left anterior descending coronary artery, clinically manifested as pulmonary edema. Ischemic ECG changes and mild elevation of cardiac biomarkers were present. She recovered well on medical treatment, and follow-up echocardiography revealed complete recovery of the left ventricular systolic function, whereas repeated coronary angiography after 1 year showed no signs of myocardial bridging. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of transient myocardial bridging in a patient with Takotsubo cardiomyopathy with documented normalization of the left ventriculogram and disappearance of left anterior descending coronary artery myocardial bridging.