[Cardiac involvement in the hypereosinophilia syndrome. the importance of echocardiography in the follow-up].

A 51-year-old man and a 39-year-old woman with the hypereosinophilic syndrome developed a restrictive cardiomyopathy in the course of cardiac involvement. Echocardiography demonstrated typical thrombotic obliteration at the apex of both ventricles. Doppler ultrasound showed changes of impaired filling in both ventricles. Glucocorticoid treatment (prednisone, 85 mg daily) had to be drastically reduced (to 10 mg daily) in case 1, because of the development of a Cushing syndrome. The man died 18 months later of advanced heart failure. In the woman the eosinophil count fell after prednisone administration (1 mg/kg daily) and there was no recurrence. But heart failure due to impaired diastolic filling has persisted so that orthotopic cardiac transplantation has been planned.