Heart Failure Due to Extreme Obesity

Abstract

OBESITY is known to cause many complications ("Corpulency is not only a disease itself, but a harbinger of others"¹). In the past, associated cardiopulmonary failure has rarely been recognized. Many reported cases that fit the description have been misdiagnosed^{2 3 4 5 6} although the association was recognized at least twenty-one years ago in the American literature.⁷ Interest has recently revived,^{8 9 10 11 12 13 14} especially since the report of Burwell et al.,⁹ who quote Dickens's excellent description in the Pickwick Papers and attach the startling appellation "Pickwickian syndrome." The syndrome is probably more common than previous authors appreciated. Physicians must be alert to its existence since . . .