Abstract
Apical ballooning syndrome (ABS), also referred to as stress cardiomyopathy, is characterized by acute left ventricular dysfunction following a stressful situation. Diagnosis of ABS is made in the following scenarios: transient hypokinesia or dyskinesia of the left ventricular segment, absence of obstructive coronary disease, new electrocardiogram abnormalities, absence of recent significant head trauma, pheochromocytoma, myocarditis, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Prognosis is usually favorable since the wall motion abnormality returns to normal within days, and certainly within the first month. We encountered a case of SLE with apical ballooning on echocardiography in a 44-year-old woman. She was suffering from severe left ventricular dysfunction that has persisted on 5 year follow-up echocardiography. We report this case along with a review of the relevant literature.
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Figure 1.
Electrocardiogram showing persistent ST-segment elevation during the first admission (A) and 5-year Follow-up (B).
![jrd-21-91f1.tif](/upload/SynapseXML/1010jrd/thumb/jrd-21-91f1.gif)
Figure 2.
Transthoracic echocardiography during the diastole (A), systole at first admission (B), during the diastole (C), systole (D) after 3-year Follow-up, during the diastole (E), systole (F) after 5-year Follow-up. It shows basal akinesia at mid to inferior wall with persistent apical ballooning.
![jrd-21-91f2.tif](/upload/SynapseXML/1010jrd/thumb/jrd-21-91f2.gif)