Cardiovascular abnormalities have been reported in Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) clinically, echocardiographically and at autopsy. Pericardial effusion, cardiac tamponade, echocardiographic abnormalities and clinical cardiomyopathy with right and left-sided congestive heart failure have all been reported as isolated case reports or in small retrospective series of patients with AIDS who had echocardiograms. The frequency with which abnormalities specifically related to AIDS were found in consecutively studied patients was not known in 1988 when the study began.