Echocardiographic diagnosis and evaluation of cardiomyopathies: idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis, Chagas' heart disease and endomyocardial fibrosis.

Echocardiographic investigations on patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with obstruction have been detailed and compared with the changes found in sixty patients with chronic Chagas' 'cardiomyopathy'. These changes are similar to those encountered in congestive cardiomyopathy. Endomyocardial fibrosis is rare in Venezuela, but six patients have been found in that country and the echocardiographic changes in one of these patients has been included in this study.