Two Autopsied Cases of Adult Type of Endocardial Fibroelastosis with Positive Results for Anti-heart Antibodies

Idiopathic cardiomyopathy defined as the myocardial degeneration and/or cardiac enlargement, which are not caused by cornary artery disease, hypertention, cor pulmononale, or rheumatic or congenital heart disease. The etiology and pathogenesis of this disease is yet unknown. However, several causative factors have been proposed for this disease in recent years. These are hereditary disorder, alcholism, infectious disease, especially for this disease in recent years. These are hereditary disorder, alcoholism, infectious disease, especially viral infectionm and autoimmune disease. We habe reported thst circulating anti-heart antibodies were found in almost half of the patients with chronic cor pulmonale and that of patients with myocardial infarction. In our previous papers the circulating anti-heart antibodies were found in 3 of 7 patients with idiopathic cariomyopathy. Two of these 3 patients with positive results for the anti-heart antibodies died and were autopsied. In this paper, the autopsy findings were characterized by diffuse endocardial and subendocardial fibroelatosis with sandwiched muscle fibers. The present cases belonged to the adult type of endocardial fibroelastosis. The relation of the curculating anti-heart antibodies to etiology and pathogenesis of this disease was briefly discussed.