Partial tearing of the interventricular septum after blunt chest trauma.

Cardiac trauma after blunt chest trauma is a rare complication of patients arriving alive to an emergency department. We here present the case of patient who had a partial rupture of the interventricular septum after having had a blunt chest trauma in a traffic accident. As there was no ventricular septal defect, conservative management was deemed appropriate.

Diagnostic dilemma: Intracardiac mass in a woman with Behçet's syndrome.

Intracardiac thrombosis is a rare manifestation of cardiac involvement in Behçet's disease, and it may be mistaken for a heart tumor. In this letter we present the case of a patient diagnosed with Behçet's disease who was incidentally found to have a mass in the right atrium suspicious of a cardiac tumor. Nevertheless, cardiac magnetic resonance showed a cardiac thrombus.

Chloroquine cardiomyopathy: beyond ocular adverse effects.

A 36-year-old woman who had received long-term treatment with chloroquine for systemic lupus erythematosus developed a third degree atrioventricular block and required a permanent pacemaker. Notably, left ventricular thickening and mild systolic dysfunction were noticed on echocardiography as well as on cardiac MRI. As there was no clear explanation for myocardial findings, the patient underwent an endomyocardial biopsy that demonstrated vacuolar degeneration of myocytes on light microscopy and curvilinear bodies on electron microscopy, both findings consistent with chloroquine toxicity.

[Ventricular septal defects in adults: 15 years of surgical experience in a single Colombian cardiovascular center].

Objective: To review the surgical experience with ventricular septal defects in adults in Colombia.

Method: Descriptive, retrospective study of surgically repaired patients between 1995 and 2010. Clinical, echocardiographic, hemodynamic, and surgical findings were related to hospital and outpatient outcomes.