Combined Right and Left Ventricular Reperfusion Injury Following Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: Role of Myocardial Contrast Echocardiography

Abstract

Right ventricular myocardial infarction (RVMI) occurs in up to half of the patients of inferior wall myocardial infarction. RVMI results in edema and increased right ventricular (RV) mass, and hence, it should be possible to visualize microvascular obstruction as a manifestation of reperfusion injury. Reperfusion injury of the RV myocardium following primary percutaneous coronary intervention has been rarely reported. This report describes a patient with the left ventricular inferior and RVMI who showed echocardiographically detected reperfusion injury of the RV-free wall and left ventricular basal inferolateral wall and conformed by myocardial contrast perfusion study despite successful percutaneous revascularization of the right coronary artery.

Keywords

• primary percutaneous coronary intervention
• reperfusion injury
• right ventricular myocardial infarction