Our team was among the first authors who had suggested that not only the hypertrophic but also the dilatative cardiomyopathy (DCM) could have a genetic origin. We presented our early observations between 1976-1995, in which we had found a very poor prognosis of familial dilatative cardiomyopathy even compared to sporadic DCM forms. The principles of treatment of the DCM were not worked out properly at that time, so we do not consider it as a new, adequate one. We examined a recent patient material from 1995, looking for the results of the up to date therapy on the course of the disease. The patient material consists of 92 sporadic and 18 familial DCM patients. The mean of ages were 43,2 years in familial and 48,4 years in sporadic form at time of the diagnosis. The five and ten years survival in both groups were 76% and 67%, respectively. Our results show that the up to date (modern) therapy of dilated cardiomyopathy improves the survival of both familial and sporadic forms. Additionally we give a brief survey of the modern therapy of DCM.
Keywords: dilatative cardiomyopathy, therapy, prognosis