Cardiomyopathy News and Research

RSS

Cardiomyopathy is a group of diseases with primary, usually diffuse, involvement of the myocardium. The myocardial disease is not secondary to ischaemic, valvular, congenital or pericardial disease.

Heart pump improves quality of life in congestive heart failure patients

The most seriously ill congestive heart failure patients live longer and have a better quality of life if implanted with a heart pump, researchers report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

17 Aug 2004

Pacemaker-type device and medicines reduce hospital stays and death rates

A nationwide clinical trial of more than 1,600 heart failure patients showed that when medicines are combined with the use of a pacemaker-type device that resynchronizes both sides of the heart, hospital stays and death rates drop significantly.

20 May 2004

Texan child receives world's first scaled-down heart pump or child ventricular assist device

A six-year-old Texas Children's Hospital patient is the first pediatric patient in the world to receive a MicroMed/DeBakey® child ventricular assist device (VAD), recently approved by the FDA for use in children. The new, scaled-down heart pump improves blood flow for patients awaiting heart transplants.

27 Mar 2004

Sleep apnea may be commonly misdiagnosed with hypertension

Patients with sleep apnea may be commonly misdiagnosed with hypertension, says a study published in the March issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians. In the study, one-third of patients with sleep apnea who were physician-diagnosed with hypertension actually had "white coat hypertension" (WCH), a condition characterized by an increase in blood pressure during a doctor's office visit and normal blood press during all other situations.

20 Mar 2004