[Specific immunologic diagnosis of alcoholic myocardial dystrophy]

The paper deals with the results of specific anticardiac antibody determination in 124 patients with alcoholic damage to the myocardium (Stages I-III chronic alcoholism), 36 healthy subjects, and 33 patients with various cardiovascular diseases. It was established that specific antibodies were present in the sera from patients with alcoholic myocardial dystrophy, but absent in healthy subjects and almost completely absent in patients with cardiac diseases of other etiology. This enables the authors to recommend that specific anticardiac antibodies be identified to detect alcoholic myocardial damage. The procedure proposed provides a high diagnostic accuracy (89.2%), has no contraindications, requires no special preparation of the patient for the examination, therefore may be used both in the in- and outpatient settings.