Value of electrocardiography and echocardiography for diagnosing ventricular enlargement in dilated cardiomyopathy.

A comparison is made of the informative value of ECG voltage criteria, echocardiographic signs (90 cases) and autopsy findings (38 cases) for diagnosing heart enlargement in dilated cardiomyopathy. Besides enlargement of both ventricles there can also occur predominant enlargement of the left or right ventricle. Echocardiographic signs of the ventricular dimensions correlate closely with the ventricular mass established by separate weighing at autopsy.

[Electrocardiographic methods in the diagnosis of focal cicatricial lesions of the myocardium in dilated cardiomyopathy].

The authors compare the pathomorphological and electrocardiographic data in 38 cases of dilated cardiomyopathy. Autopsy revealed the signs of myocardial hypertrophy associated with dilatation, myocardial fibrosis of varying degree was found despite otherwise normal coronary arteries. Myocardial fibrosis influences the ECG changes, thus reducing the informative value of the method in the diagnosis of myocardial hypertrophy and often causes abnormalities of intraventricular conduction as well as focal-cicatricial myocardial lesions.