Cardiogenic shock and complete heart block as a manifestation of fulminant Wegener’s granulomatosis

Wegener’s vasculitis is an autoimmune disease affecting small and medium-sized blood vessels with a high mortality rate. It is a disease of usually subsidious course and nonspecific initial symptoms that are diagnostically misleading. Cardiac in-volvement is described most frequently in the form of supraventricular tachyarrhyt-mias, and rarely as a clinically significant myocardial infarction. This case demon-strates another facet of this disease pre-senting as full blown shock and respiratory insufficiency progressing to ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) and multi-organ failure over the course of two weeks, with an unfortunately fatal outcome.

Wegener’s granulomatosis, vas-culitis, cardiogenic shock

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