Role of Quantitative Electromyography in Detecting Subclinical Skeletal Myopathy in Patients with Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Information concerning skeletal muscles in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients could be clinically helpful as the disease-causing insult may be shared by both types of striatal muscles. Quantitative electromyography (QEMG) analysis permits the evaluation of less obvious changes with reliable objective measurements of the Motor Unit Potential. The study aimed at evaluating the skeletal muscle function using quantitative EMG to try to detect subclinical myopathy in patients with idiopathic DCM. The study included 30 patients with idiopathic DCM, 21 complaining of fatigue and exercise intolerance and 9 did not, all had previously underwent conventional qualitative EMG studies with normal results. They were evaluated by quantitative EMG using the multi-MUAP technique. No statistically significant difference was detected in the studied parameters between the patients and the reference values nor between the patients with fatigue and those without, neither compared to each other nor to the reference values. We concluded there was no detectable subclinical myopathy in the studied DCM patients