Acute myocardial infarction in a young woman with systemic lupus erythematosus

We repor a case of acute ST elevation myocardial infarction in a 22-year-old patient with SLE, hypertension and nephropathy who underwent successful coronary angioplasty to a middle third of the left an-terior descending artery. She evolved without signs of heart failure however, due to the delay in diagnosis, she presented severe deterioration of ventricular function. ST segment elevation myocardial infarction is a very rare event in young premenopausal women, but compared to the general population, patients with lupus have at least a 50% higher risk of suffering it regardless their age. In this population, the most frequent causes are vasculitis, early atherosclerosis and secondary thrombosis to antiphospholipid syndrome. In the context of lupus, conditions such as the presence of nephritis have been described as favoring the appearance of myocardial infarction, constituting subgroups of higher risk. The increased risk of AMI in patients with SLE must be taken into account and must be suspected as a differential diagnosis of precordial pain in young women, even those under 25 years of age, a population categorized as having low CV risk according to traditional scores. This would avoid delays in diagnosis and treatment with adverse consequences such as extensive myocardial necrosis and its impact on ventricular systolic function, as occurred in this patient.