Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a heart muscle disease characterized by cardiac chamber enlargement and impaired systolic (and almost always diastolic) function. It is usually associated with heart failure, arrhythmias and/or conduction system disease and thromboembolic disease but may also be asymptomatic. DCM is diagnosed in the presence of left ventricular enlargement and systolic dysfunctio...

Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is associated with a greater risk of mortality in patients with diabetes mellitus. Currently, no specific treatment has been suggested for DCM treatment. This study demonstrated that myricetin (M) attenuated DCM-associated cardiac injury in mice subjected to streptozotocin (SZT) and in neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (NRCM) challenged with high glucose. In vivo investi...

Emerging evidence suggests that both adult cardiac cell and the cardiac stem/progenitor cell (CSPC) compartments are involved in the patho-physiology of diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM). We evaluated whether early administration of Resveratrol, a natural antioxidant polyphenolic compound, in addition to improving cardiomyocyte function, exerts a protective role on (i) the progenitor cell pool, and...

BACKGROUND Becker muscular dystrophy (BMD) and X-linked dilated cardiomyopathy often result from deletion mutations in the dystrophin gene that may lead to expression of an altered dystrophin protein in cardiac muscle. Cardiac involvement is present in approximately 70% of BMD and all X-linked dilated cardiomyopathy cases. To date, the timing of cardiomyopathy development remains unpredictable....

BACKGROUND Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is the most frequent indication for orthotopic heart transplantation. It has been suggested that mutations in genes encoding desmosomal proteins, more typically associated with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, are a cause of DCM. OBJECTIVES To determine the frequency of desmosomal protein gene mutations in heart transplant rec...

1Molecular Cardiology Division, Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute 2Cardiology Department, St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst 3Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Kensington; New South Wales, Australia *Corresponding address: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Darlinghurst, Australia. Email: [email protected] INTRODUCTION Heart failure is a highly prevalent...

OBJECTIVE Anthracyclines are successfully used in cancer treatment, but their use is limited by their cardiotoxic side effects. Several risk factors for anthracycline-associated cardiomyopathy (AACM) are known, yet the occurrence of AACM in the absence of these known risk factors suggests that other factors must play a role. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether a genetic predisposi...

Abstract Introduction In patients with diabetes mellitus (DM), the presence of myocardial dysfunction in absence coronary artery disease, valvular disease and other conventional cardiovascular risk factors has been defined as diabetic cardiomyopathy. Left ventricle concentric hypertrophy fibrosis are structural hallmarks that lead to overt diastolic dysfunction. The impact DM imaging features c...

Recent epidemiological and clinical studies have shown that type 2 diabetic patients can develop diabetic vascular complications even after intensive glycaemic control. It has been suggested that this phenomenon could be explained by the hypothesis of 'metabolic memory'. The underlying mechanisms between these enduring effects and the prior hyperglycaemic state are still not well understood. Pr...

RATIONALE Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is inherited in approximately one third of cases, usually as an autosomal dominant trait. More than 30 loci have been identified, several of which encode sarcomeric proteins which can also be mutated to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. One contractile protein gene well known as a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy disease gene, but with no reported m...