Clinical diagnosis of cardiac involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus. A correlation of clinical and autopsy findings in thirty patients.

SYSTEMIC LUPUS ERYTHEMATOSUS according to Harvey and associates' was first described in 1872 by Kaposi, but it was not until 1924 that Libman and Sacks2 reported the specific lesion of verrucous endocarditis. They2 described the hearts in four patients who had not only verrucous endocarditis, but also myocarditis and pericarditis. Since that time many reports have been published concerning the cardiac involvement of systemic lupus erythematosus. The pathologic lesions have been well described,24 but the clinical features remain ill defined. The purpose of the present study has been to review the case histories of a series of patients who had systemic lupus erythematosus, in order to correlate the clinical manifestations of cardiovascular involvement with the pathologic findings at necropsy.