Typically, peripartum cardiomyopathy occurs in the first 4 months postpartum; fewer than 10% of cases occur prepartum. Common symptoms include dyspnea, cough, orthopnea, hemoptysis, and paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea. Most affected patients have New York Heart Association (NYHA) class III or IV function. Additional symptoms include nonspecific fatigue, malaise, palpitations, chest and abdominal discomfort, and postural hypotension. Diagnosis requires a high degree of suspicion, because symptoms of peripartum cardiomyopathy can be confused with physiologic changes associated with advanced pregnancy.
Cardiomyopathy
New Diagnostic Criteria for Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy
These new insights into the heterogeneous genetic mutations and phenotypic manifestations of ACM led to a critical revision of the 2010 ITF criteria, which exclusively targeted RV classical forms and did not include the tissue characterization by contrast enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging. Accordingly, an International Expert consensus document has been recently developed to provide upgraded criteria (“the Padua Criteria”) for the diagnosis of the whole spectrum of ACM phenotypes.
Criteria for the Diagnosis of Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC)
Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) is an inherited cardiomyopathy that predominantly affects the right ventricle. With a prevalence in the range of 1:5000 to 1:2000 persons, ARVC is one of the leading causes of sudden cardiac death in young people and in athletes.
Classification for Chagas Cardiomyopathy
Chagas’ disease is caused by a protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, that is transmitted to humans through the feces of infected bloodsucking insects in endemic areas of Latin America, or occasionally by nonvectorial mechanisms, such as blood transfusion. Cardiac involvement, which typically appears decades after the initial infection, may result in cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular aneurysm, congestive heart failure, thromboembolism, and sudden cardiac death.