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Spontaneous coronary artery dissection presenting as cardiac tamponade

Balaji Badmanaban1, David McCarty, Damian J Mole

  • 1Department of Cardiac Surgery, and Regional Medical Cardiology Centre, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, Northern Ireland. balaji@talk21.com

The Annals of Thoracic Surgery
|May 9, 2002
PubMed

Spontaneous dissection of the left main coronary artery is the least common of all dissections involving the coronary arteries. It usually occurs in young women, especially in the peripartum or early postpartum period. We describe the case of a 59-year-old man with no previous history of atherosclerotic heart disease who presented in cardiac tamponade and was found to have a spontaneous left main stem coronary artery dissection at cardiac catheterization. Emergency revascularization was carried out with the patient remaining symptom-free 4 months after surgery.

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