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Background: Post-myocardial infarction (MI) ventricular septal defects (PIVSD) are an uncommon but life-threatening complication of acute MI. Although surgical closure has been the standard of care, mortality, and recurrence of VSD remain high even after emergent surgery. Transcatheter VSD closure (TCC) devices have become an alternative or adjunct to surgical closure.Methods: Online database search was performed for studies that included adults with PIVSD who underwent medical treatment (MT) alone, surgical closure (SC) (early or late), and TCC (early, late, or for post-surgical residual VSD).Results: Twenty-six studies were included with a total of 737 patients who underwent either MT (N = 100), SC (early (n = 167), late (n = 100)), and TCC (early (n = 176), late (n = 115), or post-surgical residual VSD (n = 79)). The 30-day mortality among MT group was 92 ± 6.3%, among SC was 61 ± 22.5% (early 56 ± 23%, late 41 ± 30%), and for all TCC patients was 33 ± 24% (early 54 ± 32.7%, late 16 ± 26%), and TCC for post-surgical residual VSD 11 ± 34.9%. The mortality among overall SC, overall TCC and early TCC groups was significantly lower as compared with the MT (P < 0.001 for all comparisons).The overall mortality among all TCC, and late TCC groups was significantly lower when compared with the late SC (P < 0.0001, P < 0.0001, respectively). Conclusion: Closure of PIVSD decreases mortality as compared with MT alone and should be attempted as early as possible after diagnosis. Selection of TCC versus SC should be based on factors including complexity of the defect, availability of closure devices, expertise of the operator, and clinical condition of patient. K E Y W O R D S closure device, management, post-infarction VSD, transcatheter

Partial and generalized seizures often affect autonomic functions during seizures, and interictal and postictal periods. We investigated possible interictal electrocardiographic abnormalities in patients with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCS), together with evaluating any structural heart changes by echocardiography in these patients in comparison with healthy controls. We studied 120 definite GTCS patients (76 males and 44 females) who are neither diabetic nor under any medical treatment, and 60 healthy controls with a mean age of 25.2 ± 9.3 and 27.3 ± 7.5 years; respectively. Resting systolic and diastolic arterial blood pressures were measured, and standard 12-lead electrocardiograms and a 2-dimensional echocardiographic examination were performed. In univariate analysis, GTCS patients (compared to controls) had significantly lower means of PR interval (147.2 ± 18.6 versus 153.8 ± 22.6 msec; P = 0.037), QT interval (362.8 ± 22.9 versus 379.9 ± 29.3 msec; P < 0.001), and QTc interval (425.5 ± 20.7 versus 441.6 ± 19.9 msec; P < 0.001) but significantly higher mean left atrial diameter (3.49 ± 0.64 versus 3.09 ± 0.45 cm; P < 0.001). After adjusting for age, gender, and body mass index in a multivariate adjusted logistic regression model, left atrial diameter (OR = 3.941 [1.739 - 8.932]) and QTc (OR = 0.924 [0.895 - 0.954]) were significantly and independently associated with GTCS. In conclusion, patients with epilepsy may be predisposed to disturbances of autonomic functions with subsequent cardiac arrhythmias due to the effects of recurrent seizures on cardiac microstructure. Further work is needed to stratify the risk of sudden unexplained cardiac death (SUDEP) on the basis of interictal autonomic parameters to improve prognosis.