ECT and automatic internal cardioverter-defibrillator.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a relatively safe and effective treatment even in depressed patients with preexisting cardiovascular diseases. However, little is known about its use in patients with automatic internal cardioverter-defibrillator (AICD). This case report describes a successful administration of ECT in a treatment-refractory depressed patient with an AICD, where the AICD device was deactivated during each ECT treatments and reactivated immediately upon completion of each treatment. The presence of an AICD should not be a contraindication to receiving ECT.

Minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass--a surgical approach for anomalous right coronary artery from left aortic sinus of Valsalva.

Anomalous origin of the right coronary artery from the left aortic sinus of Valsalva, although rare, has been associated with myocardial ischemia and sudden death. Methods of surgical correction include ostial reconstruction, excision and translocation of the vessel origin, and coronary artery bypass grafting. We describe a 39-year-old man with symptoms of myocardial ischemia and an anomalous right coronary artery in whom we performed the new, minimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass procedure with use of the right internal mammary artery.

Histologic abnormalities of the left ventricle in a patient with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia.

Right ventricular histologic abnormalities have been described in association with arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia, but the cause of the disease is unknown. Identical abnormalities were noted in endomyocardial biopsy specimens from the right and left ventricles of a 20-year-old male patient with the clinical syndrome of arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia. Left ventricular function was normal at rest and during bicycle exercise. Eighteen months previously, he had shown clinical and serologic evidence of mycoplasmal myocarditis. Arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia may represent predominant involvement of the right ventricle in a generalized cardiomyopathic process, possibly as a consequence of healed myocarditis.

Myocarditis related to drug hypersensitivity.

Hypersensitivity myocarditis is an inflammatory disease of the myocardium usually related to a drug allergy. The clinical manifestations may be nonspecific, and the diagnosis is seldom suspected or established during life. We report a case that demonstrates both typical and atypical features of this disease and review the clinicopathologic correlations. This case illustrates the potential occurrence of both electrical conduction block and ventricular tachyarrhythmias, either of which may account for the mechanism of sudden death in these patients. When cardiac symptoms or electrocardiographic abnormalities (or both) occur in a setting consistent with drug allergy, hypersensitivity myocarditis should be considered. Treatment consists of discontinuation of use of the drug responsible for the reaction and, possibly, administration of corticosteroids and immunosuppressive therapy.

Hemorrhagic cardiac tamponade: a clinicopathologic correlation.

Staphylococcus aureus pericarditis and recurrent episodes of hemorrhagic cardiac tamponade developed in a 31-year-old man. He later died of exsanguination and at autopsy was found to have a ruptured infective pseudoaneurysm of the aortic arch. When hemorrhagic pericardial effusions of undetermined cause are encountered, the heart and great vessels should be evaluated as potential sources of the hemorrhage.