[Clinical aspects of ventricular fibrillation in the development of myocardial infarction]

We report 13 patients who suffered ventricular fibrillation (VF) during the in-hospital course of an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). We compare the clinical features of this patients with other two groups; patients without VF and patients with intraventricular conduction defects. In 38% of the cases VF appeared after 5th day of the AMI. The group of patients with VF was characterized by an increased incidence of heart failure, supra-ventricular and ventricular premature beats, and also intra-ventricular conduction defects. In 2 patients VF appeared during the course of treatment with therapeutic doses of lidocaine. Sixty two percent of the patients with VF were discharged alive. We recommend that patients with AMI who display the above mentioned risk factor, should remain in the coronary care unit for a more prolonged period of time. By proceeding in this way, we had the opportunity to observe and immediately treat 5 further patients with AMI and VF. All of them recovered.