Cardiac manifestations of systemic autoimmune disease - Attention in atypical cardiovascular risk factors and inflammatory symptoms

Inflammatory systemic rheumatic diseases can affect inner organs such as the lung, the kidney and the gastrointestinal tract. The heart is also commonly involved showing pericarditis, myocarditis, coronary angiitis or valvular heart disease. The spectrum of resulting clinical symptoms is broad ranging from asymptomatic disease, thoracic pain, dyspnea, cardiac insuffiency, arrhythmia and pericardial tamponade to sudden cardiac death. In this review, the typical cardiac manifestations of the collagen vascular diseases, primary vasculitides, of rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis are shown. Systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease should be considered in cardiologic patients who do not have typical cardiovascular risk factors and who show inflammatory symptoms (high ESR and CRP, elevated temperature, arthralgia, myalgia, pathologic findings in other organs).