Acute Severe Mitral Regurgitation due to Papillary Muscle Rupture after Blunt Chest Trauma: Case Report

Cardiac injury is a common unexpected injury with high rate of mortality in multi-trauma patients. Blunt thoracic trauma leading to heart injury presented with variable presentations from myocardial contusion to rupture.  Cardiac injury is about 15% - 25% of blunt chest trauma. Cardiac contusion is the most common type of injury with variable manifestations associated with electrocardiogram (ECG) changes or cardiac enzyme abnormality.  Traumatic rupture of intra-cardiac structures after blunt Thoracic trauma is an uncommon. Cardiac valves rupture is uncommon, and the most frequent being aortic valve, and then followed by mitral and tricuspid. Nowadays, the incidence of these types of injury is increasing due to high increase of road traffic accidents (RTA).   Following blunt thoracic trauma, rupture of papillary muscle or its chordae tendineae is a very rare causing acute mitral regurgitation (MR) with sequence of congestive heart failure (HF) and pulmonary edema.