Post Myocardial Infarction Syndrome: An Early Complication of Acute Myocardial Infarction

¹ Physician-in-Charge, Coronary Care Unit, The Brookdale Hospital Center; Assistant Professor, Clinical Medicine, New York University School of Medicine
² Section of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, The Brookdale Hospital Center, Brooklyn
³ Physician-in-Charge, Adult Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, The Brookdale Hospital Center; Assistant Professor, Clinical Medicine, New York University School of Medicine

Five patients with acute myocardial infarction developed pleuropericarditis during the first week of their illness. Angiocardiography was diagnostic for pericardial effusion in four patients and in the fifth patient the effusion was demonstrated by echocardiogram. Prednisone therapy resulted in dramatic relief of symptoms and signs in one patient in whom subsequent withdrawal of the drug was associated with prompt recurrence. The other four patients experienced spontaneous resolution of the pleuropericardial and pulmonary findings. The observations reported here suggest that a pericardial rub heard during the first days of acute myocardial infarction is sometimes a manifestation of the Dressler syndrome, and not always simply the reflection of transmural infarction.