Dilated Cardiomyopathy is an uncommon disease in children but morbidity and mortality in affected patients are high. This review discuses clinical presentation, diagnosis, medical management and prognosis of the condition, with an emphasis on recent advances that have influenced management of these children.

Fourteen patients with predominantly right sided dilated cardiomyopathy were studied, of whom five died suddenly. The condition is characterised by male preponderance, syncope, ventricular tachycardia, which typically has a left bundle branch block pattern on the surface electrocardiogram, and right heart failure. The diagnosis should be considered in patients presenting with otherwise unexplai...

Sixty-five patients with dilated cardiomyopathy underwent 24 hour electrocardiographic monitoring: 62 (95.4%) showed ventricular arrhythmias and 52 (80%) complex ventricular arrhythmias (multiform ventricular extrasystoles, paired ventricular extrasystoles and ventricular tachycardia). Complex ventricular arrhythmias correlated significantly with some haemodynamic indices of ventricular dysfunc...

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BACKGROUND Systematic family screening has recently identified dilated cardiomyopathy as an inherited disorder in up to 30% of cases. Mutations in genes encoding proteins responsible for myocardial architecture have been identified, but additional pathophysiological mechanisms including inflammatory reactions have been proposed. AIMS Identification and characterization of familial DCM, where ...

Background Autoantibodies against the 81-adrenoceptor have been detected in the sera of patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). The mechanisms by which these autoantibodies can alter normal receptor function are investigated, and the results are interpreted in the light of the beneficial effects of P1-blockade in some of these patients. Methods and Results Autoantibodies against ...

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is the most common cause of heart failure and cardiac transplantation, and is among the most common diagnoses requiring hospitalization in North America. Approximately 4.7 million people in the United States have heart failure, and approximately 550,000 new cases are diagnosed annually (1). The 5-year mortality rate among patients with heart failure is close to 50% ...

A case of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) that is likely to be associated with LMNA mutation Arg190Pro in a heterozygote is described. The features of DCM in the patient were conduction disorders, cardiac arrhythmias, progressive heart failure and minor musculoskeletal disturbances. We consider that the mutation Arg190Pro contributes to the formation of a weak nuclear lamina and diminis...

The basic unit of meaning on the Semantic Web is the RDF statement, or triple, which combines a distinct subject, predicate and object to make a definite assertion about the world. A set of triples constitutes a graph, to which they give a collective meaning. It is upon this simple foundation that the rich, complex knowledge structures of the Semantic Web are built. Yet the very expressiveness ...

Acromegaly is a rare condition with an approximate incidence of 3-4 new cases per million per year and occurs as a result of excess secretion of growth hormone (GH). It is associated with several cardiovascular manifestations of which dilated cardiomyopathy with systolic and diastolic dysfunction is relatively rare but associated with increased mortality. There are very few documented cases of ...