title: Amyloid heart disease.
abstract: We have presented two patients with heart failure due to cardiac amyloidosis. The diagnosis was suspected from the echocardiogram and was confirmed by rectal biopsy. The echocardiogram features, which include thickening of the heart walls and other intracardiac structures, differentiate cardiac amyloidosis from other forms of heart disease. Thus, echocardiography should be helpful in the preliminary evaluation of patients with obscure heart failure and may obviate the necessity for more invasive studies.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000686:Amyloidosis / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000790:Angiocardiography; D009202:Cardiomyopathies / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000209:etiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged