What is the long-term prognosis of patients with cardiomyopathy?
Dilated cardiomyopathy is a serious disease. However, like most diseases, dilated cardiomyopathy occurs with a spectrum of severity and outcome. Depending on the cause and the degree of irreversible damage to the heart muscle following the acute illness, about one-third of patients have persistent very poor heart function, one-third improve but are left with some heart dysfunction, and one-third recover completely. It is difficult to predict which category an individual patient will fall, therefore frequent cardiology follow-up is extremely important. Patients who do have irreversible damage and persistent poor function may go on to require a heart transplant. The exact number of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is unknown, as some patients have no symptoms. The chance of premature death is estimated to be less than 1 percent. Risk factors for sudden death include episodes of passing out, young age at presentation, family history of sudden death, marked heart thickening on ech
