title: Prognostic significance of pathological parameters of endomyocardial biopsy in clinical outcome of patients of dilated cardiomyopathy--I. Quantitative morphometric analysis.
abstract: Quantitative evaluation of endomyocardial biopsies from cases of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) was carried out using IBAS KONTRON image analyser with a view to recognise parameters that may be diagnostic and reflect prognosis of the disease. Mean fibre and nuclear diameter, percentage area occupied by myofibres and mean perimeter of the muscle fibres were assessed. Haemodynamic observations were correlated with morphological findings. Percentage area occupied by myofibres was least in cases of DCM. It appears that the muscle mass in cases of DCM decreases with a corresponding increase of fibrosis within the interstitium. This parameter showed a significant direct correlation with left ventricular ejection fraction and an inverse relationship with left ventricular end diastolic pressure. Thus the percentage area occupied by myofibres indicated the severity of DCM as it correlated well with the haemodynamic parameters. Its prognostic role, however, needs to be further investigated on a larger number of cases and follow up studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, AIIMS, New Delhi.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Chopra
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Misra
authors.forename: K K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Talwar
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001706:Biopsy; D002311:Cardiomyopathy, Dilated / Q000473:pathology*; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000473:pathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology*; D011379:Prognosis