Alveolar hemorrhage following thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction: Two case reports and literature review

Abstract

Alveolar hemorrhage (AH) is a heterogeneous clinical syndrome with a high mortality rate, characterized by extensive bleeding into the alveolar spaces. AH secondary to systemic thrombolysis treatment in the setting of acute myocardial infarction is an uncom-mon complication, but potentially fatal and can lead to acute respiratory failure. This entity is rarely reported in the literature. We report two cases of acute AH after intravenous throm-bolysis for acute myocardial infarction, which could contribute to the literature on the subject, and discuss the risk factors as well as the clinical and radiological findings support-ing the diagnosis. We overview also the rare previous published case reports in this context, and we contrast our findings with those reported in the literature.