Abstract
Coronary artery anomalies and variants are relatively uncommon congenital disorders of the coronary artery anatomy and constitute the second most common cause of sudden cardiac death in young competitive athletes. Normally there are two main coronary arteries, which stem from the sinuses of Valsalva and descend towards the cardiac apex. The most frequent anomalous origin of the coronary arteries associated with sudden cardiac death is the anomalous origin of a coronary artery from the contralateral sinus, particularly if the anomalous coronary artery has a course between the aorta and the pulmonary artery. The diagnosis of a coronary artery anomaly is insidious since patients are usually asymptomatic. Indeed, in most of the cases, coronary anomalies are discovered incidentally during coronary angiography or on autopsy following sudden cardiac death. However, in some cases, symptoms like angina, syncope, heart failure, and myocardial infarction may occur. We want to describe the case of a 54 years old man who went to another hospital of our district with chest pain. The EKG showed an infero-lateral STEMI. The patient underwent systemic thrombolysis complicated by arrhythmic storm, treated with effective DC shock, then he was urgently transferred to our Hospital to perform a PCI rescue. The coronary angiography showed a critical stenosis of the right coronary artery, treated with the implantation of a zotarolimus-eluting coronary stent system. Surprisingly, an abnormal origin of the anterior interventricular artery and circumflex artery from seperated hosts in the right coronary sinus was detected. A computed tomography showed the separated origin of the right coronary artery and the left main from the right coronary sinus; moreover, the left main presented a retroaortic course between the bulb and the left atrium; the left anterior intraventricular artery run anterior to the aortic root. During hospitalization, a diagnosis of diabetes was made with consequent setting of adequate hypoglycemic therapy. Serial echocardiograms showed an improval in the ejection fraction (from 35–40% to 50%). The patient was discharged in well clinical conditions and 1 month later at the follow-up, during an outpatient visit, he was fully asymptomatic. The dynamic EKG according to Holter showed rare isolated ventricular beats; laboratory tests were normal. The anomalous origin of a coronary ostium from the contralateral sinus is the most frequently anomaly which is associated with sudden cardiac death, in particular when the left coronary artery origins from the right sinus. The rapid advancement of the imaging techniques, including CT, CMR, intravascular ultrasound, and optical coherence tomography, have provided us with a wealth of new information on this subject. Coronary artery CT offers the best performance in terms of spatial resolution, acquisition time, and image contrast but the use is limited due the dose of ionizing radiation and the use of contrast agents, in particular taking into account that most patients are young. CMR is capable of visualizing the origin of the coronary arteries non-invasively, without use of ionizing radiation and contrast agents. Currently however, due to spatial resolution, the capability of CMR to visualize smaller coronary branches is still a limiting factor preventing full assessment of coronary arteries using this modality. Developments and more widespread access to advanced cardiac imaging will undoubtedly lead to earlier diagnoses. The taxonomies of the anomalous origin of coronary arteries are inconsistent and complex and so we want to make our contribution to the register of cases of abnormal origin of coronary arteries for the risk of sudden cardiac death and ischaemic events related to.
Congenital Coronary Artery Anomalies: Three Cases and Brief Review of the Literature
