Rupture of ventricular myocardium: Report of four cases with comments on pathogenesis and on clinical significance of possibility of cardiac rupture in prognosis of coronary artery disease

Abstract

Since coronary thrombosis became a popular clinical diagnosis, and the program of its treatment includes a minimum of six weeks' absolute rest in bed, cardiac rupture has loomed large in clinical thinking. The possibility of this complication in each case of myocardial infarction lends conviction to the argument which the physician advances in winning the cooperation of the patient and his attendants. The fear of cardiac rupture justifies sentencing the patient to being fed by spoon and to using a bedpan, even if there is a bathroom two steps away from his bed. How much of this fear is founded on fiction and how much on fact deserves serious reconsideration since, in the last twenty years, the diagnosis of coronary artery occlusion has become as popular as that of acute appendicitis, and the term coronary thrombosis has entered the vocabulary of laymen. The stories of these four cases of cardiac rupture may contribute something to the study of this problem.