Akira Matsumori, MD; Naohiro Ohashi, MD; Koji Hasegawa, MD; Shigetake Sasayama, MD; Tanenao Eto, MD; Tsutomu Imaizumi, MD; Tohru Izumi, MD; Keishiro Kawamura, MD; Masatoshi Kawana, MD; Akinori Kimura, MD; Akira Kitabatake, MD; Masunori Matsuzaki, MD; Ryozo Nagai, MD; Hiromitsu Tanaka, MD; Michiaki Hiroe, MD; Masatsugu Hori, MD; Hidetoshi Inoko, Ph D; Yoshinori Seko, MD; Morie Sekiguchi, MD; Kunitada Shimotohno, Ph D; Yasuro Sugishita, MD; Nobuakira Takeda, MD; Keiko Takihara, MD; Masashi Tanaka, MD; Takeshi Tokuhisa, MD; Teruhiko Toyo-oka, MD; Mitsuhiro Yokoyama, MD; and Co-research workers

Abstract
As a collaborative research project of the Committees for the Study of Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy, a questionnaire was sent out to 19 medical institutions in Japan in order to examine the possible association between hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and cardiomyopathies. Hepatitis C virus antibody was found in 74 of 697 patients (10.6%) with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (mean age, 57.7 years) and in 42 of 663 patients (6.3%) with dilated cardiomyopathy (mean age, 56.5 years); these prevalences were significantly higher than that found in volunteer blood donors in Japan (2.4%, 50-59 years of age, each p<0.0001). The prevalence was significantly higher in patients suffering from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy as opposed to those with dilated cardiomyopathy (p<0.01). The presence of HCV antibody was detected in 650 of 11,967 patients (5.4%) patients seeking care in 5 academic hospitals. Various cardiac abnormalities were found among these patients, arrhythmias being the most frequent. These observations suggest that HCV infection is an important cause of a variety of otherwise unexplained heart diseases.
(Jpn Circ J 1998; 62: 389-391)

Key Words: Arrhythmias; Cardiomyopathy; Hepatitis C virus; Myocarditis

Mailing address: Akira Matsumori, MD, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Kyoto University, 54 Kawaracho, Shogoin, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8397, Japan