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Coronary thrombosis and sudden death after an enteroviral infection
Author(s) -
CALABRESE FIORELLA,
BASSO CRISTINA,
VALENTE MARIALUISA,
THIENE GAETANO
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
apmis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0903-4641
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0463.2003.1110204.x
Subject(s) - coronary thrombosis , medicine , thrombosis , coronary occlusion , cardiology , polymerase chain reaction , infiltration (hvac) , occlusion , reverse transcriptase , virology , biology , biochemistry , physics , gene , thermodynamics
We report the case of a 26–year‐old man who died suddenly 9 days after an episode of flu. Microscopic examination of the left anterior descending coronary artery showed an eccentric fibroatheromatic plaque complicated by thrombosis, endothelial erosion and extensive T‐cell and macrophage infiltration. Frozen sections of the thrombotic coronary segment, analysed for different infective agents by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reverse transcriptase (RT)‐PCR, showed positive amplification for an enteroviral genome. Enteroviral infection may play an important role in coronary plaque instability and may precipitate thrombotic occlusion.