Myocardial contraction band lesions in patients with fatal asthma: possible neurocardiologic mechanisms.

Myocardial contraction band necrosis (MCBN) occurs in catecholamine infusion, central nervous system stimulation, stress, and transient myocardial ischemia with reperfusion. In 4 of 13 children who died with asthma, MCBN was present, suggesting that this cardiac lesion may contribute to the deaths of some asthmatic patients. Two of the 4 patients who had MCBN had not received sympathomimetics intravenously or by an intracardiac route. Therefore, mechanisms other than infusions of large doses of catecholamines are probably involved in production of this cardiac lesion in asthmatics.