[Primary alcoholic cardiac disease and alcoholic liver disease. Anatomopathological study]

In order to find out if there is an association between alcoholic heart disease and alcoholic liver disease, and to discover the prevalence and characteristics of anatomical findings in the heart at alcoholic subjects, a prospective study was realized during the autopsies of patients younger than 60 years old, who had died with alcoholic liver disease not associated with an obvious heart disease. A second group of subjects containing similar characteristics of the first group, only without a past history of alcoholism nor liver disease, were used as controls. The comparison between the two groups in respect to: age, nutritional status, macroscopic and microscopic findings of the heart, frequency and degree of atherosclerosis revealed no statistical difference. In conclusion, we submit that the subjects who had died from liver disease also presented myocardial alterations, but that these did not differe from those observed in the control subjects.