Cardiac tamponade and death from intrapericardial rupture [corrected] of sinus of Valsalva aneurysm.

A 35-year-old woman presented with dyspnea and chest pain. She had a large aneurysm of the non-coronary sinus of Valsalva. Before her scheduled urgent surgery, the patient collapsed and died of cardiac tamponade secondary to intrapericardial rupture of the aneurysm. We would advocate urgent repair of this type of lesion to prevent such an outcome. We are aware of no other specific reports addressing extracardiac rupture of non-coronary cusp aneurysms [corrected].