Stress cardiomyopathy: clinical and ventriculographic characteristics in 107 North American subjects.

Background: Stress cardiomyopathy (SCM) is a newly described reversible cardiomyopathy of largely unclear etiology. We studied SCM in a large cohort to gain further insights.

Methods: We retrospectively identified 114 cases of SCM from among 12,150 consecutive North American patients diagnosed as Troponin-positive acute coronary syndrome, from January 2000 through December 2007, at two 24-h coronary angioplasty-capable centers.

Inadvertent transarterial insertion of atrial and ventricular defibrillator leads.

Inadvertent placement of pacemaker and implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) leads in the left ventricle (LV) is a rare but well-recognized complication of device implantation [1]. We report a case of inadvertent transarterial implantation of dual-chamber ICD leads; the ventricular lead positioned in the LV and the atrial lead positioned in the aortic root. The tip of the atrial lead migrated across the aortic wall and captured the epicardial surface of the left atrium.