[A rare cause of acute circulatory failure with pulmonary edema: catecholergic cardiomyopathy of pheochromocytoma].

We report the case of a 37 years old woman with pheochromocytoma of the adrenal gland, with acute circulatory failure and pulmonary oedema. Its originality lies, besides the rare circumstances of diagnosis, in the echographic aspect of the left ventricle with an apical myocardial infarction with both severe apical hypokinesia and compensating basal hyperkinesia. In the literature the most frequent aspect of catecholamine cardiomyopathy is a large uniform dilatation of the left ventricle with often wall hypertrophy. After surgical ablation of the left adrenal gland tumor, we observe quickly a complete normalisation of the picture and especially the echocardiogram. The cardiomyopathy and the pulmonary oedema can result from the specific action of the excess catecholamines on the myocardial cells and the pulmonary capillaries.