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SummaryIn a study of 272 patients with myocardial infarction (MI) the 68 who died within 1 year had significantly higher levels of factor VIIIR:Ag, factor VIII:C, fibrinogen, α1 antitrypsin and α2 macroglobulin than those who survived. The mean white cell count (WCC) and peak creatine kinase (CK) were also significantly higher in those who died compared with the survivors. There was considerable intercorrelation between many of the haemostatic variables, WCC and CK as well as between many of the clinical predictors of outcome and the laboratory variables. The differences in haemostatic variables between those who died and those who survived may merely reflect the size of the infarct; alternatively, the haemostatic system may influence prognosis following an MI.

SUMMARY Acromegaly is associated with an increased cardiac morbidity and mortality, but it is not clear whether this is the result of increased incidence of hypertension and coronary heart disease or of a specific disease of heart muscle. Thirty four acromegalic patients were studied by non-invasive techniques. Seven of these patients had raised plasma concentrations of growth hormone at the time of study; three were newly diagnosed and had not received any treatment. This is the first study to find evidence of subclinical cardiac diastolic dysfunction in acromegaly and it supports the suggestion that there is a specific disease of heart muscle in acromegaly.While systemic hypertension, atherosclerosis, and diabetes mellitus may contribute-to cardiovascular complications in acromegaly, cardiac failure has occurred in patients with acromegaly in the absence of these and other established causes of heart muscle disease.'" Such cases suggest the existence of a specific disease of heart muscle in acromegaly. Post

SummaryThree patients with angina pectoris treated with practolol in varying doses developed a syndrome of arthralgia, particularly of the smali joints of the hands, rash, fever, a raised E.S.R., and positive tests for lupus erythematosus (L.E.) cells and antinuclear antibody. The syndrome responded partly to withdrawal of the drug, but steroids were required to produce adequate symptomatic improvement. These disease features suggest that this is an example of drug-induced systemic lupus erythematosus (S.L.E.). The impaired ability of lymphocytes

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