Lupus-related mitral valve disease: embolic coronary occlusion as a unique cause of myocardial infarction.

Early diagnosis and greatly improved treatment have markedly altered the clinical evolution of systemic lupus erythematosus; the pattern of cardiac involvement in lupus has also changed. To illustrate this, a young woman who died from severe mitral valve disease, including a coronary embolus from verrucous endocarditis, is presented. Mitral valve involvement in lupus is no longer limited to the small benign lesions described by Libman and Sacks.