Won Young Park; Gam Rae Jo; Gi Yeong Huh

doi:10.7580/kjlm.2014.38.3.129

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Park, Jo, and Huh: - republication – Sudden Postpartum Death from Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Original Article

Korean J Leg Med 2014;38(3):129-132.

Published online: 4 February 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7580/kjlm.2014.38.3.129

- republication – Sudden Postpartum Death from Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Won Young Park¹, Gam Rae Jo², Gi Yeong Huh²

¹Department of Pathology, Pusan National University Hospital, Busan, Korea

²Department of Forensic Medicine, Pusan National University School of Medicine, Yangsan, Korea

책임저자: 허기영(626-870) 경상남도 양산시 물금읍 범어리, 부산대학교 의학전문대학원 법의학교실전화: +82-51-510-8058 FAX: +82-51-510-8143 E-mail: gyhuh@pusan.ac.kr

Received 5 August 2014 Revised 18 August 2014 Accepted 25 August 2014

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

We present here a brief literature review and a case study of postpartum pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare and progressive disease with a high maternal mortality rate. The patient, a 32-year-old woman, presented with dyspnea and shivering immediately following an uncomplicated vaginal delivery. The patient had no remarkable individual or familial history. She died 4 hours after her delivery, and an autopsy revealed atherosclerosis of the main pulmonary arteries and characteristic plexiform lesions on the lung. The remaining organs showed no remarkable pathology. We reported pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with pregnancy as the cause of death.

Keywords: Pulmonary artery hypertension, Postpartum, Sudden death

References

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Fig. 1.

The pulmonary muscular artery shows intimal thickening and atheromatous plaque (a) and hypertrophy of the media (b) (a and b, H & E, × 100).

Fig. 2.

The pulmonary arteriole shows mixed dilated and plexiform lesion (a) and medium power of plexiform lesion (b) (a: H & E, ×100, b: H & E, × 200).

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