Behind the bruise: unmasking hidden blunt cardiac injuries

Blunt cardiac injury in children is rare and may present with delayed complications. We report two cases illustrating diverse manifestations of blunt cardiac injury: one boy in middle childhood who developed ventricular tachycardia following chest trauma, while a girl of similar age presented with a right atrial pseudoaneurysm causing dyspnoea. Multimodality imaging guided successful medical and surgical management. These cases highlight the need for a high index of suspicion, ECG and echocardiographic screening in early identification of cardiac injury following blunt trauma to the chest.