CORONARY EMBOLISM

Coronary embolism is a very rare occurrence. The first case was reported by Virchow in 1856. Saphir, in 1933, collected 16 cases of coronary embolism from the literature and reported 3 that he had observed himself. In 1941, Hamman was able to refer to 40 cases, 30 from the literature and 10 from records of the Johns Hopkins hospital. In 1950, Moragues, Bawell, and Shrader, after reviewing the literature, were able to refer to 45 cases and reported one of their own. Since then, individual cases have been reported by Mussafia, Rodario, Facquet, Ravera, Aguiar, Glushien, and Walker. A total of 53 cases of coronary embolism have been reported in the literature to date. Among them only three were diagnosed during life. We present a case of coronary embolism in which the diagnosis was made before death and confirmed at autopsy.REPORT OF A CASEA 21-year-old white woman, gravida