The potential impact of the thrombolytic era on cardiac rupture complicating acute myocardial infarction.

Cardiac rupture complicating acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains a serious diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. The authors present 27 consecutive patients who died from cardiac rupture following AMI. These included 22 patients from 1975 through 1983 (prethrombolytic era) and 5 patients from 1984 through 1992 (postthrombolytic era) and all had postmortem examination. There were 16 men and 11 women with a mean age of seventy-two years. Myocardial infarction was anterior/anterolateral in 10 and inferior/inferoposterior in 17. Cardiac rupture followed AMI within one day in 14 (52%), two to five days in 8 (30%), and six to fourteen days in 5 (18%). Chest pain followed by sudden hypotension leading to electromechanical dissociation was the common terminal event. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was unsuccessful in all patients. Postmortem findings showed three-vessel coronary disease in 21 (78%) and two-vessel disease in 6 (22%). Isolated free left ventricular wall rupture was found in 22 (81%), was anterior/anterolateral in 13 (48%), posterior in 9 (33%), and in conjunction with interventricular septum or papillary muscle in 5 (18%). Patients encountered in this series were mostly elderly hypertensives with multivessel coronary disease and postinfarction angina. Furthermore, cardiac rupture commonly occurred within the first five days of AMI and cardiopulmonary resuscitation was uniformly unsuccessful. During the thrombolytic era at their institution, this complication is now being seen much less often. These observations suggest that such interventions are expected to have a favorable impact on reducing the incidence of this catastrophic event.