Acute Coronary Syndrome: An Unusual Consequence of GERD

We report a case of an 83-year-old man with history of coronary artery disease and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) who presented with sudden onset nocturnal dyspnea. He was diagnosed with non-ST elevation myocardial infarction based on the electrocardiographic changes and cardiac biomarker el...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Case reports in cardiology 2015-01, Vol.2015 (2015), p.1-4
Main Authors: Zhu, Xinjun Cindy, Torosoff, Mikhail T., Lavelle, Michael, Padala, Santosh K., Hui, Chui Man Carmen, Sidhu, Mandeep S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case Report
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We report a case of an 83-year-old man with history of coronary artery disease and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) who presented with sudden onset nocturnal dyspnea. He was diagnosed with non-ST elevation myocardial infarction based on the electrocardiographic changes and cardiac biomarker elevation. Cardiac catheterization revealed chronic three-vessel coronary artery disease, with 2 patent grafts and 2 chronically occluded grafts. While at the hospital, the patient experienced a similar episode of nocturnal dyspnea, prompting a barium esophagram, which was suggestive of a stricture in the distal esophagus from long-standing GERD. We hypothesized that he had myocardial ischemia due to increased oxygen demand from uncontrolled GERD symptoms. He had no further ischemic episodes after increasing the dose of antireflux medication over a 6-month follow-up. After presenting our case, we review the literature on this atypical presentation of GERD causing acute coronary syndrome and discuss potential mechanisms.
ISSN:2090-6404
2090-6412
DOI:10.1155/2015/939641