Clinical Course and Treatment of Dilated Cardiomyopathy During Twenty Years of Follow-up

OBJECTIVE: Demonstration of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy with unusual flow, unpredictable clinical picture and complex therapy. CASE REPORT: Patient A.P., female, 38 years old, had symptoms of dilated cardiomyopathy (with possible infectious myocarditis in the background) at age 17. After hospitalization for ten months and ten days, while waiting for heart transplantation (with threatening death outcome), without a clearly pronounced threatening arrhythmia, but with a low ejection fraction and a poor general condition, remission occurred. The therapy focused primarily on the treatment of heart failure, prevention of arrhythmia and thromboembolism. Normalization of the disease by improving the function of the left ventricle (expected in 16% of patients) occurred and lasted for 4 years, followed by an exacerbation of the disease that lasted for two years. In the next few years the patient was stable, had a first child with normal pregnancy. During the second trimester of the second pregnancy, there was an exacerbation (postpartum dilatation cardiomyopathy) lasting for couple of months. At the time of case report (May 2017), the patient is stable on therapy (ACE inhibitor, beta blocker, diuretics, If channel blocker), without limitation of physical capacity, mother of two children, unemployed. CONCLUSION: The clinical course of dilated cardiomyopathy is extremely unpredictable and therapy is very complex and demanding.