Potential for and timing of recovery in children with dilated cardiomyopathy.

Objective: Understanding the clinical course and time-frame for recovery is helpful to guide management and counselling following a diagnosis of Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM). We aimed to document outcomes and time to recovery for a cohort of patients with a dilated cardiomyopathy phenotype.

Methods: An observational cohort methodology was used to collect retrospective data from the departmental database for those identified with DCM.

Monitoring of Epstein-Barr viral load in pediatric heart and lung transplant recipients by real-time polymerase chain reaction.

Background: Elevation in Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) load measured in peripheral blood has been proposed as a marker for development of post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD), but there are few published data examining this relationship. We report the longitudinal surveillance of EBV for all recipients of heart (HTx), heart-lung (HLTx) and lung (LTx) transplants at our institution.

Methods: The study population included all patients transplanted between January 2003 and July 2004.