title: Traumatic ventricular septal defect in a 4-year-old boy after blunt chest injury.
abstract: Traumatic ventricular septal defect (VSD) resulting from blunt chest injury is a very rare event. The mechanisms of traumatic VSD have been of little concern to dateuntil now, but two dominant theories have been described. In one, the rupture occurs due to acute compression of the heart; in the other, it is due to myocardial infarction of the septum. The clinical symptoms and timing of presentation are variable, so appropriate diagnosis can be difficult or delayed. Closure of traumatic VSD has been based on a combination of heart failure symptoms, hemodynamics, and defect size. Here, we present a case of a 4-year-old boy who presented with a traumatic VSD following a car accident. He showed normal cardiac structure at the time of injury, but after 8 days, his repeated echocardiography revealed a VSD. He was successfully treated by surgical closure of the VSD, and has been doing well up to the present. This report suggests that the clinician should pay great close attention to the patients injured by blunt chest trauma, keeping in mind the possibility of cardiac injury.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Cardiovascular Center, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Yun Mi
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Byung Won
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Yoo
authors.forename: Jae Young
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Jun Hee
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Sul
authors.forename: Young Hwan
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Park