Traumatic acute myocardial ischaemia involving two vessels

Myocardial infarctions caused by coronary artery injury after blunt chest trauma is a fatal, but rare occurrence. In the case reported on here, a fatally injured 69-year-old male driver sustained such trauma in a frontal car collision. The autopsy found a laceration of the left anterior descending artery as well as a subsequent subepicardial haematoma surrounding this artery and the circumflex artery. Using triphenyl tetrasolium chloride and hematoxillin-eosin stains, an acute myocardial ischaemia of the anterior left ventricle wall and the septum was diagnosed as the cause of death. Since coronary injuries affecting more than one vessel in blunt chest trauma are extremely rare, only a few papers have yet to refer to this type of coronary injury in addition to the case presented here.