An autopsied case of marked cardiac hypertrophy due to multifactorial heart disease in an 85 year-old man who had been socially active

• Published in: Nihon Rōnen Igakkai zasshi Vol. 38; no. 6; p. 819
• Main Authors: Okuno, S, Ashida, T, Ebihara, A, Sugiyama, T, Fujii, J, Chida, K, Ezaki, Y, Ohkawa, S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japan 2001
• Subjects: Activities of Daily Living; Aged; Atrial Fibrillation - complications; Heart Failure - complications; Humans; Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular - etiology; Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular - pathology; Leisure Activities; Male; Mitral Valve Insufficiency - complications; Ventricular Fibrillation - pathology
• ISSN: 0300-9173
• DOI: 10.3143/geriatrics.38.819

An autopsied 85-year-old man had suffered from a mild form of diabetes mellitus since the age of 67 and had experienced the first episode of heart failure with arapid ventricular rate of atrial fibrillation at the age of 72. He had remained socially active until he died suddenly of ventricular fibrillation, although he had complications of aortic regurgitation at the age of 76 and later mitral regurgitation at the age of 80. Chest roentgenograms showed gradual increase in the cardiothoratic ratio which reached 68.1% at the final stage. Autopsy revealedmarked left ventricular hypertrophy with a heart weight of 580 g, degeneration ofaortic valves, thickening of mitralvalve cusps and moderate coronary atherosclerosis without ischemic myocardial lesions. There were no specific lesions suggestive of primary cardiomyopathies on microscopic observations and the lesions of both aortic and mitral valves were not significant enough to explain the clinical findings of aortic and mitral regurgitation. Because the pathological examination failed to identify a single disease which was responsible for the marked cardiachypertrophy, we eventually reached the conclusion that the cardiac hypertrophy developed based on a multifactorial heart disease.