Clinical cases of myocardial infarction in pregnant women: the role of hereditary thrombophilia

Abstract

Acute myocardial infarction during pregnancy is a threatening complication with high maternal and perinatal mortality. According to the literature, hereditary thrombophilia is commonly associated with obstetric disorders and susceptibility to venous thrombosis, whereas arterial part of the vasculature, including coronary, is rarely involved. The article describes two clinical cases of pregnant women with acute myocardial infarction and post-infarction cardiosclerosis, in whom hereditary thrombophilia, associated with the gene PAI-1-675 polymorphism, was diagnosed. Mothers of both patients had suffered myocardial infarction at a young age, while past history of only one pregnant woman was remarkable for multiple perinatal losses. Myocardial infarction may manifest with intense headache mirroring systemic angiospasm.Based on the clinical observations of acute myocardial infarction in pregnancy, one could conclude that measurements of troponin levels that might be false negative should be done repeatedly, while the signs of transmural myocardial injury at ECG can evolve into those of an intramural myocardial infarction. Miscarriage and fetoplacental insufficiency have been found in the patients with combination of hereditary thrombophilia and myocardial injury. Coronary artery damage in pregnant women can be the result of hereditary thrombophilia, most often associated with the PAI-1-675 gene polymorphism, as well as its combination with the heterozygous state of other genes.The absence of past perinatal losses and venous thromboembolism in pregnant women with myocardial infarction does not exclude hereditary thrombophilia, and additional work-up of the patient and the proband family is mandatory to exclude the underlying pathology. The course of myocardial infarction may not require an intracoronary intervention, and treatment may consist of non-fractionated or low molecular weight heparin and calcium antagonists.