Cardiac amyloidosis presenting as microvascular angina--a case report

Cardiac amyloidosis usually presents with heart failure, but rarely leads to coronary insufficiency. The authors report a case of a 69-year-old Japanese woman with cardiac amyloidosis presenting as microvascular angina. She had exertional angina with positive exercise test and normal coronary angiograms. However, heart failure developed, and she died 3 years after symptom onset. On autopsy, coronary arteries were patent. In contrast to that of the epicardial coronary arteries, histologic examination of the heart revealed severe obstructive alterations of the intramural coronary arteries with amyloid. Furthermore, amyloid was present mainly in the endocardium and the intramural coronary arteries, but there was little present in the myocardium. This case was a rare AL amyloidosis. There have been only 4 reported cases of cardiac amyloidosis that presented with exertional angina, a positive exercise test, and normal coronary angiograms and histologic examination.