[Heart involvement in hypereosinophilia: the restrictive or the dilated type?].

As many as 60 patients with hypereosinophilia of different genesis were examined. 40 of them manifested the clinical (congestive heart failure in 6, tachycardia in 10, cardialgias in 3, murmur in the heart in 13, pericardial murmur in 3) and/or ECG signs (disorders of repolarization in 25, His bundle block in 4, rhythm disorders in 7, pathologic Q waves in 2) of heart injury. In 15 out of the 20 examined, the echocardiography data corresponded to the dilated pattern of heart injury despite the fact that the changes in contractile function of the left ventricle were less appreciable than in 28 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. In 2 patients who died (one from congestive heart failure and one from anaphylactic shock) the presence of endomyocardial fibrosis with heart dilatation was confirmed on postmortem examination. One female patient with right ventricular failure manifested the characteristic signs of isolated injury to the right ventricle. In 3 patients, the endocardium appeared thickened. None of the cases showed the signs of restrictive heart injury. The data obtained indicate that hypereosinophilia may be one of the etiologic factors of dilated cardiomyopathy.