ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHIC FINDINGS IN CASES OF VENTRICULAR ANEURYSM

Abstract

It is the almost unanimous opinion of those who have studied aneurysm of the ventricle complicating occlusion of the coronary artery that the diagnosis of this condition is a difficult clinical task. The rarity of occurrence of the lesion has been somewhat overemphasized. Libman¹ reported that it was found fifteen times as frequently as Hodgkin's disease, and Applebaum and Nicolson² found aneurysm of the ventricle to have been present in 57 (or 38 per cent) of 150 cases of occlusive disease of the coronary arteries of the atherosclerotic group. Of the 57 aneurysms, 56 were located in the left ventricle. Pletnew³ has shown the difficulty of diagnosis by purely physical means; he reported 0.5 per cent successful diagnoses in 300 cases. Kahn,⁴ in 1922, stated that roentgenographic and fluoroscopic examination are of little aid in the diagnosis of this condition, but more recently several authors⁵ have detected the sacculation by