Surgical treatment of ventricular septal rupture complicating myocardial infarction.

A review of postinfarction ventricular septal defects repaired surgically at Providence Hospital over the past 6 years is presented. Although this complication of myocardial infarction carries a high mortality rate, a lower rate can be achieved with early operative intervention. Preoperative pharmacologic reduction of preload, afterload, and intra-aortic balloon pumping are only temporizing measures to allow delineation of concomitant lesions. Operative mortality does not appear to be influenced by posterior location of the ventricular septal defects.