[Sequential spontaneous coronary artery dissection in a female patient on oral ephedrine]

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is an infrequent, but not rare, cause of acute coronary syndrome. It mainly affects young women, often with few or no traditional cardiovascular risk factors. In the case described, a 57-year-old woman experienced a first episode of SCAD involving a distal branch of the circumflex coronary artery--treated conservatively--followed, after a few hours, by a second episode of SCAD involving the left anterior descending coronary artery, complicated by hemodynamic instability and treated with emergency angioplasty. During the previous months, the patient was taking a slimming drug containing ephedrine. Dual spontaneous coronary dissection of different type and involving two different vessels, which occurred in the same patient within a few hours, testifies the heterogeneity of the clinical picture of this syndrome and of the therapeutic approach.