Surgery of post-myocardial infarction scars. Early and late results in 70 patients.

Immediate and late postoperative results in 70 patients undergoing resection of a true left ventricular aneurysm (50 patients) and of an asynergic area (20 patients) are presented. The operative mortality was 14 per cent. Predicted survival by actuarial methods was 80 per cent at one year after operation and 65 per cent at six years. Functional improvement was obvious with most of the survivors falling in NYHA class I or II. Factors influencing operative mortality were the clinical indication for operation and the anatomical lesion. Late postoperative results were better for true aneurysms than for asynergic areas. An asynergic area was usually associated with multiple coronary vessel lesions and a diffusely ischaemic myocardium. An aneurysm was often associated with a single coronary vessel disease and with good function of the non-infarcted myocardiun.