Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a heart muscle disease characterized by ventricular dilatation and impaired systolic function. Patients with DCM suffer from heart failure, arrhythmia, and are at risk of premature death. DCM has a prevalence of one case out of 2500 individuals with an incidence of 7/100,000/year (but may be under diagnosed). In many cases the disease is inherited and is termed f...

Case Report (Dr R F Miller) The patient was a 39 year old male homosexual book publisher. He first presented to this hospital in December 1988 with a diagnosis of oral hairy leukoplakia and at the time was found to be HIV 1 antibody positive and to be hepatitis B immune. Not long after this he developed a cough, increasing exertional dyspnoea and a reduced exercise tolerance. He was admitted fo...

BACKGROUND Calreticulin, a Ca(2+)-buffering chaperone of the endoplasmic reticulum, is highly expressed in the embryonic heart and is essential for cardiac development. After birth, the calreticulin gene is sharply down regulated in the heart, and thus, adult hearts have negligible levels of calreticulin. In this study we tested the role of calreticulin in the adult heart. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIP...

In majority of the cases familial dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is inherited in an autosomal dominant manner. In rare instances, this condition is inherited in an autosomal recessive pattern. In other rare cases, DCM can be inherited in an Xlinked pattern. Establishing a genetic diagnosis confirms or modifies the clinical diagnosis and enables disease specific estimates on prognostics and treatm...

BACKGROUND In Dilated cardiomyopathy the heart is enlarged and ventricles are dilated. Gated myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography is considered state of the art for myocardial perfusion imaging. A retrospective analysis was conducted to evaluate patients with dilated cardiomyopathy with Tc-99m sestamibi gated myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomogr...

BACKGROUND Ventricular activation is often abnormal in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy, but its specific effects on timing remain undetermined. OBJECTIVE To investigate the use of the ratio of the sum of left ventricular ejection and filling times to the total RR interval (Z ratio) to dissociate the effects of abnormal activation from those of cavity dilatation. METHODS Subjects were 2...

FIG. 1. — Case 1: Brain MRI FLAIR (A) and T2 (B) sequences showing bilateral honeycomb-like pattern involving both capsulo-lenticulostriatal areas and thalami corresponding to dilated VRS. Case 2: Brain MRI T1 (C) and T2 (D) sequences showing left hemispheric fronto-parietal parasagital dilated VRS. Virchow-Robin spaces (VRS) are interstitial fluidfilled pia-lined extensions of the subarachnoid...

BACKGROUND The aetiology of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy is believed to have an immunological component. Association with human leucocyte antigens (HLAs) has been previously reported, particularly with HLA-DR4. AIM To determine the association of HLA type with diagnosis in a group of patients assessed for heart transplantation. METHODS A comparison was made of frequencies of HLA types ...

Tissue from the explanted hearts of 21 patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy or 19 patients with other specific heart muscle diseases were investigated for presence of enterovirus-specific RNA with an enterovirus group-specific cDNA probe. This was complementary to coxsackievirus B2 RNA sequences between nucleotide numbers 6,550 and 7,400, which are highly conserved between enteroviru...

Anomalous origin of the left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery (ALCAPA) or Bland-White-Garland syndrome is usually an isolated cardiac anomaly but, in rare incidences, has been described with patent ductus arteriosus, ventricular septal defect, and tetralogy of Fallot. This syndrome may cause sudden death in infants and young people but in this case report we present two different types...