Abstract: Ventricular septal rupture is a rare complication of acute myocardial infarction, but it can easily lead to such complications as acute heart failure and cardiac shock with sinister prognosis. Surgical treatment is a fundamental measure to improve the prognosis, and the selection of operation time is a key factor. The basic guiding principles of operation timing are as follows. Those patients who have acute heart failure and/or cardiac shock soon after the onset of ventricular septal rupture, and can not be controlled by nonsurgery therapy and are also unable to tolerate surgery, will die soon. For them, surgery treatment cannot be implemented because they have missed the optimal operation time. For those whose perforation was so small that they can be stably controlled by nonsurgery therapy, surgery treatment can be postponed for 1 to 4 weeks. However, emergency operation should be performed in time once the condition of the patients becomes unstable. For others, no matter in what state they are, surgical treatment should be implemented immediately.