RIGHT-VENTRICULAR INFARCTION

The description of right ventricular myocardial infarction appeared more than 60 years ago,1 yet for decades it was not considered an important clinical entity, in large part because of studies in animals in which experimentally induced isolated right ventricular damage caused no substantial change in systemic venous pressure, pulmonary pressure, or cardiac output2–4. Twenty years ago Cohn and coworkers5 published their classic report on right ventricular infarction as a distinct clinical entity. The condition is now recognized to occur in nearly half of all inferior myocardial infarctions. Normal Physiology The right ventricle has the same cardiac output as. © 1994, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.