ABSTRACT
Cardiac rupture is a well-recognized complication of acute myocardial infarction that is responsible for 10% to 15% of all in-hospital deaths. Written descriptions of this lifethreatening event, which most often involves the left ventricular free wall and less frequently the interventricular septum, papillary muscle, right ventricular free wall, and atrium, have appeared in the medical and surgical literature for centuries. William Harvey (1647) is credited with the initial report [1], followed some years later by a detailed account of cardiac rupture found within the autopsy notes from King George II (1727).
