title: Myocardial contractile reserve as prognostic determinant in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy without overt heart failure.
abstract: To assess the prognostic significance of myocardial contractile reserve in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) without overt heart failure (New York Heart Association functional class I or II), seventy-one patients underwent exercise radionuclide angiography in addition to clinical, radiographic, hemodynamic, and echocardiographic evaluations. Myocardial contractile reserve was assessed as left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) during peak exercise minus LVEF at rest (delta LVEF). During an average of 49 months, 18 patients died of the disease. Cox's proportional-hazards regression analysis showed that the delta LVEF was the most powerful and independent discriminator for survival (p = 0.0002). Ejection time (p = 0.0029) and cardiothoracic ratio (p = 0.017) were the second and third most predictive variables, respectively. Evaluation of the delta LVEF, which reflects residual myocardial contractile reserve, can provide important information about the prognosis of patients with DCM and mild symptoms.
authors.affiliation: Second Department of Internal Medicine, Gumna University School of Medicine, Japan.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nagaoka
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Isobe
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kubota
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Iizuka
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Imai
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nagai
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002311:Cardiomyopathy, Dilated / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009200:Myocardial Contraction; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011875:Radionuclide Angiography; D013318:Stroke Volume; D015996:Survival Rate; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left