© 2004 by BMJ Publishing Group & British Cardiac Society
MINI-SYMPOSIUM
Myocardial hibernation and heart failure: introduction
MRC Clinical Sciences Centre, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK; paolo.camici@csc.mrc.ac.uk
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
For many years the functional sequelae of chronic coronary artery disease (CAD) were considered essentially irreversible and amenable only to palliative treatment. For example, asynergy on the left ventriculogram implied infarcted myocardium or scar. Evidence accrued over the past three decades, however, indicates that chronic left ventricular dysfunction in patients with CAD is not necessarily irreversible.1 Two pieces of evidence led to a new concept of reversible myocardial dysfunction with obvious and important implications for patient care. Firstly, clinicians and surgeons observed that chronic myocardial dysfunction present before coronary bypass often reversed following revascularisation. Secondly, studies by Gorlin and colleagues,2 using a catecholamine stress, showed that the asynergic left ventricle could improve its function with inotropic stimulation. This was the forerunner of dobutamine echocardiography, currently an important tool for detecting hibernating myocardium.1
Utilising these pieces of information in 1978 Diamond and colleagues3 presciently suggested the possibility that "ischemic non infarcted
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
