BACKGROUND QT dispersion (QTd) is increased in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. Increased QTd has been associated with the risk of sudden death. We studied: a) the relation between QTd on 12-lead ECG and QTd-ECG Holter; b) the relation between QTd apex (QTda) and QTd end (QTde) on ECG Holter and the risk of ventricular arrhythmias in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. METHODS AND RESU...

BACKGROUND Many of the factors that are known to alter left atrial (LA) contractility are present in patients with ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM). Nevertheless, preservation of LA contractile function in this group of patients was reported in previous studies. The aim of this study was to assess the changes in LA size, geometry and contractile function in ICM. METHODS AND RESULTS 60 subjects (...

Background Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) is a powerful tool to identify the arrhythmia substrate in patients with ischemic or non-ischemic cardiomyopathy. However, the performance and diagnostic yield of CMR in pre-ablation evaluation for ventricular arrhythmia in patients without known structural heart disease was still unknown. In the present study, we sought to investigate the per...

The electrocardiogram (ECG) is a commonly available basic diagnostic modality in in-patient, out-patient, and emergency departments. In patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), the presence of a fragmented QRS (f-QRS), which is an extra R wave (R'), notching of the single R wave, notching of the S wave in at least two contiguous leads on the 12-lead ECG, is associated with a myocardial scar...

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetic disorder caused by mutations in genes coding for proteins involved in sarcomere function. The disease is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction. Evolutionarily developed variation in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), defining mtDNA haplogroups and haplogroup clusters, is associated with functional differences in mitochondrial function and susceptibilit...

Background Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) and early gadolinium enhancement (EGE) are powerful diagnostic tools for acute cardiomyopathies. LGE is associated with impaired prognosis in ischemic and in chronic non-ischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM), but the impact of gadolinium enhanced CMR on prognosis in recent onset NICM is less well established. We performed a ...

Background Mitral regurgitation (MR) and right ventricular dysfunction have been shown to be an independent predictors of mortality in patients with severe ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM). However, it is unclear how right ventricular end systolic volume index (RVESVi) modifies risk in patients with ischemic mitral regurgitation. We sought to assess impact of RVESVi, MR, and the interaction of the...

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has well recognized thermogenic properties mediated by uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1); more recently, BAT has been demonstrated to modulate cardiovascular risk factors. To investigate whether BAT also affects myocardial injury and remodeling, UCP1-deficient (UCP1(-/-)) mice, which have dysfunctional BAT, were subjected to catecholamine-induced cardiomyopathy. At baseline...

BACKGROUNDS Clinical trials have demonstrated that cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is effective in patients with "non-ischemic cardiomyopathy". However, patients with dilated-phase hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (DHCM) have been generally excluded from such trials. We aimed to compare the clinical outcome of CRT in patients with DHCM, idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDCM), or ischemic c...

The presence and properties of serum autoantibodies against beta-adrenergic receptors in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy were studied using synthetic peptides derived from the predicted sequences of the human beta-adrenergic receptors. Peptides corresponding to the sequences of the second extracellular loop of the human beta 1- and beta 2-adrenergic receptors were used as antige...