Cover Image: Ventricular fibrillation in a lady with two hearts
Pitt O. Lim and Nick Ossei-Gerning
A 66-year-old woman presented with mild atypical chest pain, fatigue, and general malaise. She had heterotopic (piggyback) cardiac transplantation 10 years previously for dilated cardiomyopathy and had developed hypertension, coronary artery disease, and atrial fibrillation in her recipient heart over the following years. Her cardiac enzymes were raised, confirming a recent myocardial infarction involving her recipient heart, while her donor heart was functioning well on echocardiogram. Panel A shows that her recipient heart was in ventricular fibrillation, best seen in the left-sided chest as opposed to the normal sinus rhythm in the single right-sided V6R chest lead of the donor heart. Panel B shows two distinct regular cardiac rhythms following a successful cardioversion with a single 200 Joules DC shock.
Figure legend:
Panel A: Ventricular fibrillation in recipient heart.
Panel B: Sinus rhythm in recipient heart following DC cardioversion.
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