Autoimmune studies in patients with primary myocardial disease.

Heart immunofluorescent autoantibody tests, the complement fixation test for Chagas' disease, the hemagglutination test for toxoplasmosis, and the latex flocculation test for rheumatoid disease were compared in 34 patients with primary myocardial disease and their paired control subjects. There was no difference in the incidence of elevated titers or in the actual titer levels between the group with primary myocardial disease and the control group for any of these tests. This study is limited in that it gives no information about an agent or mechanism for primary myocardial disease which is no longer demonstrable by serological test, particularly since the patients with primary myocardial disease were studied, at an average, 6 years after onset of symptoms. It is also possible that agents or mechanisms other than those included in this study may be causative of primary myocardial disease. We have, however, demonstrated that there is no serological evidence associating the parasites or immunological responses studied with the clinical syndrome of chronic primary myocardial disease.