Disappearance of the Dressier Syndrome

Prof. Tsung O. Cheng, MD, Division of Cardiology, George Washington University Medical Center , 2150 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20037 (USA) Dear Sir, I read with interest the article by Shahar et al. [1] on the disappearance of Dressier’s syndrome following the introduction of thrombolysis therapy for acute myocardial infarction, but the decrease in incidence or near disappearance of Dressier’s syndrome has been reported by previous observers [2, 3] before the era of thrombolysis. In contrast to the 3-4% reported originally in 1959 by Dressier [4], in 1982, Lich-stein et al. [2] did not find one single case in a retrospective study of 229 patients treated in the same institution as Dressler’s patients. Therefore, I propose that the near disappearance of Dressler’s syndrome is more likely related to the decreased use of oral anticoagulants and to more aggressive treatment of early postmyocardial infarction pericarditis [2, 3] than to the advent of thrombolytic therapy [1]. References Shahar A, Hod H, Barabash GM, Kaplinsky E, Motro M: Disappearance of a syndrome: Dressler’s syndrome in the era of thrombolysis. Cardiology 1994;95:255-258. Lichstein E, Arsura E, Hollander G, Greengart A, Sanders M: Current incidence of postmyocardial infarction (Dressler’s) syndrome. Am J Cardiol 1982;50:1269-1271. Braunwald E: Heart Disease, ed 4. Philadelphia, Saunders, 1992, p 1263. Dressier W: The postmyocardialinfarction syndrome. A report on forty-four cases. Arch Intern Med 1959;103:28-42.