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Snake heart: a case of atavism in a human being
Ishmeet Walia1, Harvinder S Arora, Esmond A Barker
1Department of Cardiology, Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
Abstract:
Atavism is the rare reappearance, in a modern organism, of a trait from a distant evolutionary ancestor. We describe an apparent case of atavism involving a 59-year-old man with chest pain whose coronary circulation and myocardial architecture resembled those of the reptilian heart. The chest pain was attributed to a coronary steal phenomenon. The patient was discharged from the hospital on a heightened regimen of β-blockers, and his symptoms improved significantly. To our knowledge, this is only the 2nd reported clinical case of a human coronary circulation similar to that of reptiles.
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