Acquired Heart Disease Superimposed on Congenital Heart Disease

A 50-year-old man with a murmur since birth developed systemic arterial hypertension as an adult. He came to the hospital because of dyspnea. He had a pulmonic valve ejection click and a murmur of pulmonic stenosis. His echocardiogram showed biventricular hypertrophy, a flat ventricular septum, a D-shaped left ventricle, systolic doming of the pulmonic valve, and Doppler evidence of a 70 mm Hg peak systolic pressure gradient across the pulmonic valve and a peak right ventricular systolic pressure of 100 mm Hg. His electrocardiograms showed no evidence of the right ventricular and right atrial enlargement so evident on echocardiogram, presumably because it was obscured by the marked changes of left ventricular hypertrophy. Three years later, when he was admitted for sepsis and worsening heart failure with anasarca, the voltage changes of left ventricular hypertrophy had virtually disappeared, likely due to the large amount of fluid between the heart and the electrodes.