IMR Press / HSF / Volume 10 / Issue 3 / DOI: 10.1532/HSF98.20071011

The Heart Surgery Forum (HSF) is published by IMR Press from Volume 28 Issue 9 (2025). Previous articles were published by another publisher under the CC-BY-NC licence, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement.

Open Access Article
Acute Coronary Embolism without Valve Thrombosis in a Patient with a Prosthetic Mitral Valve—Successful Percutaneous Coronary Intervention: A Case Report
Heart Surg. Forum 2007, 10(3), 228–230; https://doi.org/10.1532/HSF98.20071011
Published: 24 April 2007
Abstract
We present a 44-year-old female patient with anterior myocardial infarction caused by embolization from mitral valve prosthesis due to inadequate anticoagulation. The patient underwent a cardiac catheterization within the 1st hour of arrival. The angiography showed total occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery after the second diagonal branch. Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty and stenting were performed, and coronary artery perfusion was restored. The pain disappeared completely immediately after this intervention. Transthoracic echocardiography shortly after this intervention showed normal prosthetic valve function and no thrombus. Transesophageal echocardiography performed 2 days later revealed no thrombus at the prosthetic valve. In conclusion, this case demonstrated that coronary embolism may occur even without prosthetic valve thrombus or dysfunction with suboptimal International Normalized Ratio levels, and can be successfully treated with percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty and stenting.
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