Thirty-nine patients underwent emergency coronary bypass surgery for acute myocardial infarction, Patients were divided into two age groups; 10 patients aged 75 years or older and 29 patients under the age of 75 years. In addition, we compared these two groups and another 23 patients aged 75 years and older who recieved reperfusion therapy alone. The rate of mortality was 30% in the patients 75 years or older, 31% in the patients under 75 years and 52% in the patients with reperfusion therapy alone. There were no significant differences between the three groups. The majority of two groups of surgical patients died of low cardiac output after the operation. Fifty percents of the patients who recieved reperfusion therapy alone died of extension of myocardial infarction or reinfarction. However, no surgical patients died of reinfarction. There were no significant differences in Killip's class, preoperative hemodynamics and the number of diseased vessels between two surgical groups. In the patients of 75 years or older, the post-operative cardiac output did not increase in comparison with the patients under the age of 75 years. They required a longer period for oral uptake and a longer recovery period after the surgery. Therefore, emergency coronary bypass surgery for acute myocardial infarction was effective in the elderly population aged 75 years or older, although it still carried a high operative mortality.

We experienced a very rare case in a 26-year-old man who underwent surgery for bilateral atrial myxomas. Moreover, his initial symptoms were due to acute myocardial infarction, which strongly suggested coronary artery embolization. Transesophageal echocardiography revealed not only left atrial myxoma at posterior wall, but also right atrial myxoma at the fossa ovalis which had not been detected by transthoracic echocardiography. At surgery, both left and right atriotomy was performed and bilateral atrial myxomas were completely removed. We emphasized that transesophageal echocardiography was very useful in detecting the location of myxomas, and that surgical exploration of the right atrium would have been necessary even if left atrial myxomas had not existed at the atrial septum.