Human immunodeficiency virus and left ventricular noncompaction

摘要

Left ventricular noncompaction (LVNC) has been described in association with congenital heart disease, neuromuscular disease and various myocardial disorders such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, peripartum cardiomyopathy and myocarditis [1-5]. Isolated LVNC is thought to occur in the absence of these coexisting cardiac abnormalities. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a well-recognized cause of dilated cardiomyopathy [6,7] in the absence of other associations including nutritional, infectious or drug-related causes. To our knowledge, no reports of HIV-associated LVNC have been documented other than one case of an HIV-positive individual who had concomitant neurological disease [8].We present a case series of seven HIV-positive patients who were found to have overt phenotypic features of LVNC on echocardiography that satisfied the comprehensive criteria we previously described to more accurately differentiate LVNC from normal individuals in black Africans (Fig. 1) [9]. These patients were identified in our echocardiography laboratory during routine evaluation.