[Cardiac involvement of alcoholics and the effect of total abstinence].
Echocardiographic features of 221 alcoholics after total abstinence were investigated. At the time of admission, none demonstrated left ventricular (LV) enlargement. Noticeably, 26% patients out of the total showed LV wall thickening more than 1.4 cm in the interventricular septum. On the other hand, 19% of the alcoholics illustrated hypokinetic LV wall without chamber dilatation which was either less than 55% in ejection fraction or 30% in fractional shortening. Three months later, the LV wall thickness reduced significantly from 1.6 to 1.4 cm in average and the LV wall motion improved significantly from 27 to 31% in fractional shortening. In the cases with wall thickening, the change was well correlated with a decrease both in heart rate and in LV muscle volume, but not with a decrease in systemic blood pressure. No significant correlated factors could be detected in the hypokinetic cases.
Izumi
T
T
Kato
H
H
Kodama
M
M
Sasagawa
Y
Y
Masani
F
F
Kodera
K
K
Tsuda
T
T
Shibata
A
A
Inai
T
T
Katsui
T
T
D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications*; D002310:Cardiomyopathy, Alcoholic / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004452:Echocardiography; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology