Specific heart muscle disease in diabetes mellitus--a functional structural correlation.

We report the morphology of diabetic myocardium obtained by endomyocardial biopsy in 16 diabetics. The material was divided into three groups. The first comprised six patients with unexplained cardiomegaly and obscure congestive cardiac failure. The second group, also of six patients, had no cardiac signs and symptoms but exhibited abnormal systolic time intervals. The third group, of 4 patients, was without any cardiac symptoms or signs and had normal systolic time intervals. The vascular and extravascular changes observed were more pronounced in the symptomatic group, intermediate in the asymptomatic patients with abnormal intervals and least in those without symptoms and normal intervals. This provides supporting evidence for the existence of a specific primary myocardial disease in diabetes with good functional structural correlation.