Cardiac involvement in systemic sclerosis.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the incidence and extent of cardiac involvement in systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients with no apparent cardiac symptoms.


METHODS
Surface electrocardiography, ambulatory electrocardiography, radionuclide ventriculography, myocardial scintigraphy, and echocardiography were performed in 18 patients.


RESULTS
These studies demonstrated ventricular tachycardia in 1 patient, nonsustained ventricular tachycardia in 5, supraventricular tachycardia in 6, decreased left ventricular ejection fraction in 2, decreased right ventricular ejection fraction in 8, and stress-induced reversible myocardial perfusion abnormalities in 6.


CONCLUSIONS
These observations demonstrate a high rate of cardiac abnormalities in SSc patients without cardiac symptoms.
Anvari
A
A
Department of Cardiology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Graninger
W
W
Schneider
B
B
Sochor
H
H
Weber
H
H
Schmidinger
H
H
D000368:Aged; D001794:Blood Pressure; D003326:Coronary Circulation; D004452:Echocardiography; D004562:Electrocardiography; D015716:Electrocardiography, Ambulatory; D005260:Female; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D008168:Lung / Q000503:physiopathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011651:Pulmonary Artery / Q000503:physiopathology; D015635:Radionuclide Ventriculography; D012595:Scleroderma, Systemic / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology; D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes