Cross-sectional echocardiographic diagnosis of coronary artery aneurysms in patients with the mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome

Abstract

Real-time cross-sectional echocardiographic studies revealed the presence of coronary artery aneurysms in five patients with mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome. These lesions appeared as circular echo-free spaces with clearly-defined borders in sites corresponding to angiographically proven aneurysms. In 15 normal subjects who were studied only by noninvasive methods, and in 17 who had normal coronary arteriograms (including eight with the mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome), we found no similar echo findings. The aneurysms were in both right and left coronary arteries in three patients, and were confined to the left side in two. The mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome is an increasingly common condition in Japan which may be fatal due to myocardial infarction occurring in a setting of coronary aneurysm with thrombosis. Therefore, the ability to demonstrate coronary aneurysms noninvasively is of prognostic and potentially therapeutic value in this inadequately understood syndrome.