1118-101 Congestive Heart Failure and Cardiogenic Shock Complicating Acute Myocardial Infarction Have High Mortality and Are Associated With Intense Inflammatory Response: Results From the CARDINAL Trials

: We studied 53 consecutive patients with AMI (M/F; 32/21, age; 73±7[mean±SD] years), who died of ventricular septal and free wall rupture between 1978 and2002. The diagnosis was made based on postmortem histological examination. Forty-two patients (80%) were without previous infarction and 44 patients (84%) were hyper-tensive.