Incomplete Ventricular Septal Tear After Blunt Chest Trauma: Medical Management With Serial Echocardiographic Follow-up

Incomplete ventricular septal tears are uncommon or probably underreported cardiac lesions caused by blunt chest trauma. This report describes two cases of incomplete ventricular septal tears that were not suspected clinically. Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography provided the diagnostic information in both of these cases. Despite associated valvular lesions, the patients' stable in-hospital course lead to the decision to treat them medically with no specific treatment to the incomplete ventricular septal tears. Accordingly, these two cases were observed for a mean period of 1.5 years with serial echocardiographic studies to track the natural history of these lesions. During the follow-up period, both of these cases did not manifest any changes in the extent of ventricular septal tear, septal structure, or any left-to-right shunting through the tear. There were no significant changes in left ventricular size, shape, or systolic function. Thus echocardiographic imaging proved to be useful both in initial diagnosis and follow-up.