Cardiac MRI is a valuable tool for diagnosing and planning surgical management of left ventricular pseudoaneurysms following myocardial infarction.
Left ventricular free wall rupture (LVFWR) is a grave complication of acute myocardial infarction. Acutely, it has an extremely high rate of mortality, especially if undetected. Chronically, there is paucity of data on how to manage the pathology, especially if detected as an incidental finding. We present a unique case of initially undetected LVFWR in a patient who presented with repeated chest pain. Cardiac MRI enabled the diagnosis and localisation of the original site of LVFWR and provided highly relevant volume calculations. Measurement of both absolute and virtual volumes indicated that aneurysm resection, including the original site of rupture, was surgically feasible without reducing postoperative stroke volume.
Orsborne et al. (Tue,) studied this question.