[Surgical treatment for postinfarction ventricular septal perforation].

Between November 1985 and April 2003, surgical treatment for ventricular septal perforation (VSP) after acute myocardial infarction was performed in 16 patients. Patients were divided into 2 groups by method of operation. One group is infarct exclusion technique (n = 10). The other group is trans right ventricular (RV) approach (n = 6). No significant differences were observed between 2 groups in preoperative states. Operative death rate was high in both groups. Five patients (50%) were died in infarct exclusion group, 4 patients (67%) in trans RV group. Infarct exclusion technique needed longer extracorporeal circulation time (201 +/- 33 min) than trans RV approach (170 +/- 32 min). Although trans RV approach is attractive for its simplicity, 3 cases died of rupture of remained left ventricle infarction area. On the other hand, there were no mortality cases caused by left ventricle rupture in infarct exclusion technique group. As this result, we select infarct exclusion technique as a surgical correction for VSP.