True posterior myocardial infarction: the importance of leads V7–V9

Abstract

An ambulance crew attended a patient complaining of chest pain with a clinical picture strongly suggestive of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). A 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) was obtained, which demonstrated ST segment depression of 1 mm in V2–V4 with upright T waves and hyperacute R waves in V1 and V2 (fig 1). A posterior myocardial infarction (MI) was considered and a series of posterior views was obtained to confirm the diagnosis. Leads V7 and V8 revealed ST segment elevation of 1 mm prompting removal to the cardiac catheter laboratory for expert assessment. Angiography later revealed a proximally occluded left circumflex as the infarct-related artery; which was successfully stented along with an incidentally critical mid-left anterior descending artery. https://emj.bmj.com/content/26/6/456. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emj.2008.069195