[Should patients with post-infarction defect of the interventricular septum be operated on?]

Conservative treatment of patients with postinfarction defect of interventricular septum has proved inefficient. However, the acute stage of infarction and the formation of a perforation is not yet an indication for surgical treatment as plastic surgery is technically impossible in the necrotized area. After the acute stage is over, surgical treatment is necessary to prevent the development, in the chronic stage, of invalidism-bound cardiac failure, which cannot be controlled by conservative means because of continuous left-to-right blood discharge.