Year: 2002
Type: article
Study design: Case Report
Abstract: Peripartum cardiomyopathy is a rare cardiac disorder characterized by the development of heart failure in the last month of pregnancy or up to 5 months postpartum in women without other determinable causes of cardiac failure. Intracardiac thrombi have been found at autopsy in some patients with this condition and have been demonstrated in the left or right ventricles on 2-dimensional echocardiography. A 23-year-old woman presented with peripartum cardiomyopathy and biventricular thrombi on echocardiography. The thrombi were spherical, pedunculate, shaggy and irregular in configuration, and freely mobile, suggesting that they were fresh. She was treated with conventional heart failure therapy and anticoagulants. Four days later, the apical thrombi within both ventricles had disappeared and there was no evidence of embolism on physical examination. The hypercoagulable state of the peripartum period and the severe biventricular dysfunction most likely led to the formation of biventricular thrombi.
Source: Circulation Journal
DOI: 10.1253/circj.66.863
Authors: Isao Nishi, Toshiyuki Ishimitsu, Tomoko Ishizu, Yukihiro Ueno, Akihiro Suzuki, Yoshihiro Seo, Sadanori Ohtsuka, Keiji Iida, Iwao Yamaguchi
Institution: University of Tsukuba
Language: English
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1968489370