Spontaneous Disection of LAD

My 43yo sister had a spontaneous arterial dissection on 11/9/10 and she presented with classic MI symptoms. She has no risk factors and there is no family history. Fortunately, it was in the distal artery so she survived. She was catheterized and her distal artery was found to be smaller than average. She was readmitted 12/30/10 for chest pain/pressure with nausea. The good news is there was no further damage, the bad news is that they don't know why she is symptomatic. She has intermittent A-Fib as well.Cardiologists speculate that she may have other smaller than average vessels thay may not able to be visualized and this may produce angina type symptoms. I know this type of cardiac event is rare, but is there some statistics on reoccurance? Is there viable treatment besides meds and lets wait and see approach?

[CCF HeartMD-1]

Spontaneous dissections of the coronary arteries are actually very rare but can occur in women who are post-partum or who take oral contraceptives.  There are a few vascular diseases which are also rare but can cause spontaneous dissections in the coronary arteries or other arteries in the body.  I would definitely recommend that your sister see a Vascular Medicine physician to have her evaluated for a vascular disorder unless she was recently pregnant or on oral contraceptives then that could explain why this happened to her.  Unfortunately, there is no way to predict if she could have another dissection but if this was related to pregnancy or oral contraceptives and she avoids both of these factors it would be extremely rare to have a reoccurrence.  If she has a vascular disorder, there is no way to predict.  There are a few medications we typically treat with but I would first have her evaluated like I stated above by a Vascular Medicine physician.  I work at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and we have a large department of Vascular Medicine physicians but there are other specialists across the country also!!!

Hope this helps.