Cardiac involvement in AIDS. Cardiac involvement in AIDS may occur at any stage of HIV disease and may manifest as congestive cardiomyopathy, potentially lethal arrhythmia, or pericardial effusion and tamponade. The heart may be affected by nearly all of the opportunistic infections and many of the malignancies associated with the syndrome. Although often clinically unobtrusive, cardiac lesions may be important in the pathogenesis of significant clinical symptoms and play an often unrecognized role in the prognosis and natural history of AIDS. 