Skip to main content
PMC home page
Heart logoLink to Heart
. 2001 Mar;85(3):e4. doi: 10.1136/heart.85.3.e4

Cardiac rupture caused by Staphylococcus aureus septicaemia and pericarditis: an incidental finding

S Osula, R Lowe, R Perry
PMCID: PMC1729660  PMID: 11179283

Abstract

A 35 year old woman with a long history of intravenous drug abuse presented to a local hospital with severe anaemia, fever, raised markers of inflammation, and positive blood cultures for Staphylococcus aureus. She responded to treatment with antibiotics with improvement in her symptoms and markers of inflammation. Four weeks later a "routine" echocardiogram showed a rupture of her left ventricular apex and a large pseudoaneurysm. There had been no deterioration in her symptoms or haemodynamic status to herald this new development. It was successfully repaired surgically and the patient made a good recovery.


Keywords: ventricular rupture; pseudoaneurysm; staphylococcal septicaemia

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (94.2 KB).

Figure 1  .

Figure 1  

Open in a new tab

Apical four chamber view with colour flow Doppler, showing the point of cardiac rupture and false aneurysm. LV, left ventricle; RV, right ventricle.

Figure 2  .

Figure 2  

Open in a new tab

Apical four chamber view showing the point of free wall rupture. FA, false aneurysm.

Figure 3  .

Figure 3  

Open in a new tab

Left ventricular angiogram showing false aneurysm.

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Frances C., Romero A., Grady D. Left ventricular pseudoaneurysm. J Am Coll Cardiol. 1998 Sep;32(3):557–561. doi: 10.1016/s0735-1097(98)00290-3. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Hung M. J., Wang C. H., Cherng W. J. Unruptured left ventricular pseudoaneurysm following myocardial infarction. Heart. 1998 Jul;80(1):94–97. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Joergensen B. S., Ladegaard L., Szczepanski C. Pseudoaneurysm of the left ventricle as a complication of septic embolism. Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 1986 Aug;34(4):269–270. doi: 10.1055/s-2007-1022151. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Lee P. J., Spencer K. T. Pseudoaneurysm of the left ventricular free wall caused by tumor infiltration. J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 1999 Jul;12(7):604–606. doi: 10.1016/s0894-7317(99)70010-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Romero-Menor C., Español I., Alcaide F., Peña C., Casanovas T. Myocardial abscess at a distant zone from the active valvular infection. J Cardiovasc Surg (Torino) 1998 Apr;39(2):227–228. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Sharma S. N., Bahl V. K., Venugopal P. Left ventricular pseudoaneurysm following infective endocarditis--a case report. Indian Heart J. 1991 Sep-Oct;43(5):395–396. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Wiegers S. E., Plehn J. F., Rajail-Khorasani A., Knowlton A. A. Purulent pericarditis and ventricular pseudoaneurysm in an intravenous drug abuser. Am Heart J. 1988 Dec;116(6 Pt 1):1635–1637. doi: 10.1016/0002-8703(88)90759-4. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. de Boer H. D., Elzenga N. J., de Boer W. J., Meuzelaar J. J. Pseudoaneurysm of the left ventricle after isolated pericarditis and Staphylococcus aureus septicemia. Eur J Cardiothorac Surg. 1999 Jan;15(1):97–99. doi: 10.1016/s1010-7940(98)00256-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Heart are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES