NEW YORK (Reuters) -- People who have a relative with dilated cardiomyopathy, a rare cause of heart failure, have a greater risk for the disease than previously thought, a new study suggests.
Nearly one third of the healthy relatives of patients with the heart condition had an abnormal echocardiogram, or ECG, with an enlarged heart being the most common abnormality found, according to a report in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Heart failure, a condition in which the heart becomes enlarged and stops pumping efficiently, is classified as dilated cardiomyopathy if the cause is unknown. Patients suffer from shortness of breath, fainting, and fluid accumulation, and may progress to the point of requiring a heart transplant.
While it was thought that the disease ran in families, the extent of the relationship was unexpected, according to researchers led by Dr. Kamran Baig, of the St. George's Hospital Medical School in London.
The study included 408 relatives of 110 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and 29% of the relatives showed signs of heart abnormalities on a ECG. In a 39 month period, 12 of the previously healthy relatives developed DCM, one underwent a heart transplant and another died suddenly.
Early recognition and drug treatment may help slow disease progression, the authors speculated.
"Early identification of such people would permit appropriate intervention that might influence the serious complications and mortality of this disease," they concluded. Sometimes heart failure is not recognized until a patient develops potentially life-threatening blood clots or arrhythmias, or even dies suddenly.
SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology (1998;31:195-201)
