Surgical treatment of mechanical complications following acute myocardial infarction. A Case Series.

Background: Acute myocardial infarction can result in ischemic, mechanical, arrhythmic, embolic or inflammatory complications. Despite high operative mortality, the lack of an effective and immediate medical alternative makes the surgery repair the mainstay of current management for these patients. Novel surgical approaches are presented to manage these complications. Main body: Mechanical complications presented at the Department of Cardiac Surgery-Tirana University Medical Centre consisted in nine cases during the period January 2008-June 2018: two anterolateral papillary muscle rupture cases (22%), one posteromedial papillary muscle rupture case (11%), two ventricular septal rupture cases (22%), one free ventricle wall rupture case (11%), three chordae tendineae rupture cases (33%), four out of nine patients (44,5%) underwent concomitant CABG intervention. Intra operator mortality is estimated 11% (one out of nine cases). The Department of Cardiac Surgery-Tirana University Medical Centre is limited only in open surgery techniques for repair the post myocardial infarction mechanical complications. To our personal view key reasons for these results are conditioned from lack of medical devices, trained stuff, reliable short and long outcome data from alternative procedures in order to incorporate thus in our daily practice. Further studies should be undertaken not only to create a precise image of the situation, but also to evaluate the results of the possible changes.