Cardiac arteriovenous malformation causing sudden death

Multiple coronary artery–left ventricular fistulas causing sudden death in a young woman

“…Most CAFs arise from the right coronary artery and terminate in the right side heart chambers or in the pulmonary artery, but in few reports, as in the present case, the LAD is the predominant vessel involved with multiple fistulous connection to the left ventricular cavity [2,3]. The proportion of symptomatic patients increases with age, and when present, clinical signs depend on the number and size of the CAFs as well as their coronary origin and site of drainage [1].…”

“…To our knowledge, only 4 cases of SD for coronary fistulae have been reported, with the age of patients ranging from 21 to 29 years [2,3] for 3 cases and only 1 older patient, a 62-year-old man.…”

Two Cases of Cardiac Arteriovenous Malformation Complicated by a Local Angioproliferative Process

“…Vascular masses that are histologically composed of mature but malformed arteries and veins, as seen in our two patients, are in fact congenital vascular malformations (hamartomas) that show a slowly progressive type of growth and never regress [3, 11]. Only a few cases of well-documented cases of cardiac AVM composed of multiple dilated tortuous vessels have been described [1, 4, 8]. Of these, the case described by Schroeder et al [8] is of particular interest because their description of AVM in a 7-year-old boy includes a similar network of immature capillary vessels amidst the large vessels of the malformation, as we noticed in our cases.…”

“…Moreover, arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) may have aberrant direct connections (shunts) between veins and arteries without an intervening capillary bed. True cardiac AVMs, which are intramural conglomerates of malformed arteries and veins fed by one of the coronary arteries, have only been reported incidentally [1, 4, 8]. …”

Hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia

“…Arteriovenous malformation have been described only rarely in other locations, including coronary arteries [70,71] and the vessels of the eye [72], spleen [73], urinary tract [73] and vagina [74]. These lesions are treated with embolization, ligation or surgical resection.…”