Treatment of dilated cardiomyopathy

Dilated cardiomyopathy is a multi-factorial heart muscle disease with approximately 25% of identified cases being of a familial nature. Patients may be without symptoms for a number of years and their first presentation may be as a sudden death. Family screening is a key tool in early diagnosis and treatment of familial disease, with mutation analysis being used to enable predictive testing in some cases. Early identification of reduced heart function can be treated with established heart failure medical therapies to slow the progression of the disease. Increasingly, cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) is being used to improve heart function in suitable cases and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) are used to reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death. Those with severe heart failure may be suitable for a left-ventricular assist device (LVAD) or heart transplantation.