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Doctors Lounge - Cardiology Answers
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| keithanthony
- Tue Jan 18, 2005 2:23 pm |
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Thank you for your previous response. I did go to the Emergency Room as you advised and just spent a week in hospital being evaluated. I have been diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. This is probably viral in nature as I don't seem to have any of the other causes I was checked for. My EF is said to be somewhere between 30% and 40%. I was told 40 at the stress echo test, and 30 by the doctors who performed a cardiac catheterisation on me.
My question is, is there a realistic chance of improving this back to normal levels, or do I just have to try to manage the situation as is? I realise that I will have to live a more careful life, but what are the possibilities of ever getting "well" ?
Thank you for your time.
Keith Anthony
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| Dr. Yasser Mokhtar
- Wed Jan 19, 2005 11:40 am |
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 Dear Keith,
Thank you very much for the update.
Dilated cardiomyopathy means that you don't have coronary disease. This was proven by the cardiac catheterization that was performed. And this is done for patients with low ejection fraction to make sure that a bypass surgery is not needed which would be the treatment of choice in cases of coronary disease so that the ejection fraction improves.
The etiology of dilated cardiomyopathy is very difficult to determine and if no cause is found, it is called idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. It is difficult to predict the course of the disease in many patients.
There are now several treatment modalities that have been proven to increase the ejection fraction and decrease mortality.
Thank you very much for using our website http://doctorslounge.com and i hope that this information helped.
Yasser Mokhtar, M.D.
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