Atrial Infarct: An Easily Missed Reality with Hidden Threat A case report with Review of Literature

Mohammed Abaye Deen Saleh, Abdul Wadud Chowdhury, Pratyay Hasan, Syed Rezwan Kabir, Khyrun Nahar, KMN Sabah, Mohammad Gaffar Amin, Kazi Nazrul Islam

Atrial infarction is a very rare diagnosis. Though available literature suggests, the condition per se
may have been not so rare. Over the past few decades, atrial infarction have been reported several
times, even some case series have been reported, but there is no consensus on the diagnosis of this
condition, and its true importance also has not been understood completely. Previous works have
shown that this condition is associated with several serious complications; hence recognition of this
condition in early period is important, which is at the same time not so easy due to subtlety of the
known features and less availability of information. We report a case of 70 year old Muslim, Bengali,
male suffering from acute coronary syndrome, in whom, right atrial infarction was recognized by
electrographic features, which is very rarely diagnosed with confidence in ante-mortem patients.
Since, in Bangladesh, post-mortem autopsy to find out causes behind cardiac death is not done
routinely and in the light of possibility of serious life-threatening complications, ante-mortem
diagnosis of atrial infarction is necessary. So, Cardiologists should be aware of this uncommon
condition.

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