[Mechanisms of cardiac involvement in systemic scleroderma. Apropos of 3 cases]. / Mécanismes de l'atteinte cardiaque dans la sclérodermie systémique. A propos de trois observations.

To investigate myocardial manifestations in progressive systemic sclerosis, we studied three patients with transthoracic echocardiography, cardiac catheterization with coronary angiography, thallium scans with dipyridamol completed by thoracic cold exposure and endomyocardial biopsy with immunohistology. Two patients were symptomatic. In the three cases, abnormalities of myocardial perfusion were detected without coronary stenosis. Two patients had myocardial fibrosis with a coronary spasm in one case. The immunohistological study always showed an unusual expression of HLA class II antigen on cardiac fibroblasts.