Surgical treatment of post-infarction ventricular septal rupture.

The authors describe their series of 9 patients operated upon for post-infarction rupture of the ventricular septum. Two patients operated upon earlier than 6 weeks following the rupture died. Of the 7 patients operated upon 6 weeks after the diagnosis of rupture 1 died. The risk of operative intervention is determined not only by the time between rupture and surgery, but also by the magnitude of rupture and the extent of the myocardial infarction, as well as the functional state of the residual myocardium.