[Heart alterations in chronic polyarthritis]

Described in this paper are pathomorphological alterations to the heart postmortem recorded from 100 deceased with rheumatoid arthritis. Vasculitis of subepicardial or intramural rami of coronary arteries was recorded from twelve cases and had caused multiple myocardial necrosis in ten of these. These developments had led to progressive cardiac insufficiency which actually then was the direct cause of death. Formal pathogenesis of vasculitis-related multifocal myocardial necrosis in concomitance with rheumatoid arthritis had never been described in the literature before, although such reference would have been justified for the clinical consequences for which it deserves to be emphasised as a nosological entity in its own right. Isolated rheumatic nodes were detected in the myocardium of five of the decreased and could be attributed to rheumatic arteritis in two cases. Those myocardial rheumatic nodes, according to the author's view, represent the severest form of necrotising rheumatic vasculitis. Pathognomonic pericarditis was found in four cases (2 pericarditis nodularis and 2 pericarditis rheumatica). Pathognomonic nodular valvulitis was identified in another four cases. Systemic secondary amyloidoses were found to be present in 24 of the above 100 deceased with chronic polyarthritis. The heart was involved in 23 of these 24 cases (95.8%).