title: Myocardial Rupture in Acute Myocardial Infarction: Mechanistic Explanation Based on the Ventricular Myocardial Band Hypothesis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Torrent-Guasp explains the structure of the ventricular myocardium by means of a helical muscular band. Our primary purpose was to demonstrate the utility of echocardiography in human and porcine hearts in identifying the segments of the myocardial band. The second purpose was to evaluate the relation of the topographic distribution of the myocardial band with some post-myocardial infarction ruptures.
  
  
  METHODS
  Five porcine and one human heart without cardiopathy were dissected and the ventricular myocardial segments were color-coded for illustration and reconstruction purposes. These segments were then correlated to the conventional echocardiographic images. Afterwards in three cases with post-myocardial infarction rupture, a correlation of the topographic location of the rupture with the distribution of the ventricular band was made.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The human ventricular band does not show any differences from the porcine band, which confirms the similarities of the four segments; these segments could be identified by echocardiography. In three cases with myocardial rupture, a correlation of the intra-myocardial dissection with the distribution of the ventricular band was observed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Echocardiography is helpful in identifying the myocardial band segments as well as the correlation with the topographic distribution of some myocardial post-infarction ruptures.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia Ignacio Chavez, México, D.F., México.
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vargas-Barron
authors.affiliation: Escuela Superior de Medicina, Instituto Politecnico Nacional, México, D.F., México.
authors.forename: Omar-Yassef
authors.initials: OY
authors.lastname: Antunez-Montes
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia Ignacio Chavez, México, D.F., México.
authors.forename: Francisco-Javier
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Roldán
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia Ignacio Chavez, México, D.F., México.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aranda-Frausto
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia Ignacio Chavez, México, D.F., México.
authors.forename: Hector
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: González-Pacheco
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Cardiologia Ignacio Chavez, México, D.F., México.
authors.forename: Ángel
authors.initials: Á
authors.lastname: Romero-Cardenas
authors.affiliation: Valley Regional Medical Center, Brownsville, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Miguel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zabalgoitia
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000818:Animals; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006342:Heart Rupture, Post-Infarction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000150:complications*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology; D013552:Swine