BACKGROUND Patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) may present with ventricular arrhythmias early in the disease course, unrelated to the severity of left ventricular dysfunction. These patients may be classified as having an arrhythmogenic DCM (AR-DCM). We investigated the phenotype and natural history of patients with AR-DCM. METHODS AND RESULTS Two hundred eighty-five patients with a re...

BACKGROUND Studies from Europe and North America suggest that 20 - 50% of patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) may have familial disease. There is little information on the frequency and clinical genetics of familial DCM in Africa. PURPOSE To determine the frequency and probable mode of inheritance of familial DCM in patients referred for investigation of the cause of DCM at a tertiary ...

OBJECTIVES This prospective study was performed to analyze the frequency and clinical characteristics of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). BACKGROUND Despite several previous reports on families with DCM, most cases are still believed to be sporadic, and specific clinical findings of the familial form are not well defined. METHODS In 445 consecutive patients with angiographically pro...

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is the third most common cause of heart failure after coronary artery disease and hypertension. DCM is the most frequent form of primary myocardial disease. Clinically, DCM is characterized by a progressive course of ventricular dilatation and systolic dysfunction. The different stages of DCM are reflected by the presentation of asymptomatic patients with left ventr...

AIM The aim of this study was to determine the value of extracellular volume fraction (ECV) for the non-invasive assessment of diffuse myocardial fibrosis (MF) in different stages of systolic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in comparison with endomyocardial biopsy. BACKGROUND Non-invasive ECV assessment using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) T1 mapping...

Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is one of the leading causes of severe heart failure and the most common cause of heart transplantation due to its ventricular dilatations and contractile dysfuntions. Twenty percent of DCM is in the familiar form and the rest is sporadic. The clinical impact of DCM is far greater than its position in epidemiological terms. Despite recent improvements in ...

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of tissue transglutaminase (tTG) in the pathogenesis of diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) and the intervention effect of rutin. DCM was induced in rats by the injection of streptozotocin (STZ; 25 mg/kg). After a preliminary examination, the rats were randomly divided into four groups: Control (n=8), STZ-induced DCM (n=8), STZ + positive drug (captop...

OBJECTIVES We sought to identify a novel gene for dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). BACKGROUND DCM is a heritable, genetically heterogeneous disorder that remains idiopathic in the majority of patients. Familial cases provide an opportunity to discover unsuspected molecular bases of DCM, enabling pre-clinical risk detection. METHODS Two large families with autosomal-dominant DCM were studied. G...

Scrophularia genus belonging to the family of Scrophulariaceae, is a medicinal plant widely distributed in Iran. In the present study,the anti-malarial activity of different extracts of three Iranian endemic species of Scrophularia including S. frigida, S. subaphylla and S. atropatana, was screened by an in-vitro preliminary assay. The plant materials were extracted successively with n-hexane, ...