Postinfarction Ventricular Aneurysm: Four Year Follow-up of Surgically Treated Cases

¹ Department of Surgery and the Barton Division, Jefferson Medical College Hospital

Three patients with surgical correction of post-infarction ventricular aneurysms are alive more than four years following surgery. Serial measurements of cardiac output at rest and during graded exercise reveal an improvement in cardiac function following surgery. This improvement in cardiac function has been maintained and accompanied by marked clinical improvement. It is evident that surgical resection of post-infarction aneurysm of the myocardium is not only a feasible, but is a valuable therapeutic procedure. Two of the more important causes for death in this entity, congestive heart failure and thromboembolic phenomena, can be prevented or markedly reduced in incidence. It is also probable that the improvement in cardiac output is accompanied by an improvement in coronary blood flow thus further improving the prognosis in this group of patients.