Lipomatous metaplasia in left ventricular scar.

Lipomatous metaplasia of scar is often associated with severe heart failure and is more frequent and extensive in ischemic heart disease. Transformation of a compact scar into compressible and "sliding' adipose tissue may worsen ventricular wall function, thus facilitating and/or aggravating aneurysm formation. This phenomenon must be considered in the evaluation of myocardial repair, cardiac imaging of viable myocardium, quantitative morphology of autopsy specimens, and qualitative and quantitative biochemical analysis of myocardial tissue.