[Combined acute myocardial infarct and pulmonary thromboembolism with fatal outcome]

A retrospective clinical and pathologicoanatomic analysis was made of 37 patients with the combination of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE), that had a lethal end. The following facts were established: The combination of AMI with PTE is established in 7.89% in AMI. All patients have several preconditioning factors for PTE, advanced age including. PTE advances usually in extensive anterior and anterior-posterior myocardial infarction, complicated with cardiac insufficiency. In rare cases, a reverse succession is likely--massive PTE with a following, most frequently posterior-inferior AMI. The percentage of the undistinguished PTE in case of AMI is high--46%. The diagnosis of PTE in AMI is made, with a high probability, in acutely advancing respiratory distress, tachycardia (tachyarrhythmia, pulmonary hypertension, loading of right ventricle, arterial hypotension, phlebothrombosis in the absence of data for extension of the myocardial infarction. ECG, roentgenography, laboratory investigations do not essentially improve the possibilities of making the diagnosis of PTE in AMI.