Dilated Cardiomyopathies of the Adult

Cardiomyopathies are diseases of the myocardium. We use the term "cardiomyopathy" here to refer to a disorder that directly affects one or both cardiac ventricles in a diffuse or multifocal fashion, and that produces heart failure at least in some patients. This definition embraces both the linguistic roots of the word and the clinical context in which the concept of cardiomyopathy is most useful — namely, in specifying those instances in which heart failure results from a myocardial disease rather than from an extrinsic disorder, such as valvular disease, a circulatory shunt, pericardial disease, uncontrolled hypertension, . . .