Abstract

Cardiac Lesions in HIV Infection When Are They Clinically Significant? By John Ballenot whether Cardiac in all abnormalities to recent are common according stages of infection with HIV, clinically important and whether echocardiography should be used to screen patients for covert disease seem unsettled. A new study from George Washington University shows that a substantial number of seropositive patients who have yet to develop AIDS have echocardiographic evidence of dilated cardiomyopathy and other potentially remediable problems that are not clinically apparent. One of the investigators thus says he believes echocardiography is defensible in any patient infected with HIV. asymptomatic anomalies reports. But are agree, however, that the high prevalence of heart anomalies in HIV-infected patients should prompt clinicians to suspect cardiac involvement in any of these patients with dyspnea. In the past, clinicians may have assumed that symptoms were caused by lung disease, which is also common in this syndrome. Previous reports showed that cardiac abnormalities are common in patients with end-stage disease. Several autopsy studies found major cardiac pathology in about one-fourth of AIDS cases.1-3 One study reported cardiac irregularities in 73% of AIDS patients who underwent echocardiography or autopsy.4 These ab- normalities, however, are researchers have