Traumatic heart disease

Five cases of traumatic heart disease (THD) who sustained blunt chest injury in road accidents are reported. In addition to fracture of the ribs (observed in all the cases), there was fracture of the sternum and rupture of the liver and spleen in one case each. Two patients had flail chest. One presented with recurrent ventricular tachycardia lasting for 72 hours followed by changes suggestive of subendocardial infarction. The second case also had changes like subendocardial infarction and it was preceded by junctional tachycardia with aberrant conduction during the first 48 hours. Ventricular premature beats (VPB) were the only abnormality noted in one case and the remaining two had ST-T wave changes suggestive of inferolateral ischaemia without any arrhythmias. The patient with VPB developed pericardial rub without effusion. There was one death and postmortem revealed ruptured liver and spleen in addition to laceration of the right ventricle and haemopericardium. The electrocardiographic changes persisted for two to eight weeks. All four cases were symptom-free at 12 weeks and treadmill exercise test done after 12 to 18 weeks was normal.