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This open access book presents a comprehensive overview of dilated cardiomyopathy, providing readers with practical guidelines for its clinical management. The first part of the book analyzes in detail the disease's pathophysiology, its diagnostic work up as well as the prognostic stratification, and illustrates the role of genetics and gene-environment interaction. The second part presents current and future treatment options, highlighting the importance of long-term and individualized treatments and follow-up.Furthermore, it discusses open issues, such as the apparent healing phenomenon, the early prognosis of arrhythmic events or the use of genetic testing in clinical practice.Offering a multidisciplinary approach for optimizing the clinical management of DCM, this book is an invaluable aid not only for the clinical cardiologists, but for all physicians involved in the care of this challenging disease.

This book is a practical guide to the differential diagnosis and treatment of patients presenting in the Emergency Department with syncope or arrhythmias, including bradyarrhythmias, atrial fibrillation, narrow and wide QRS tachycardias. In addition, clear advice is provided on the management of patients with cardiac devices and possible dysfunction, electrical storm, or a requirement for urgent surgery. For each topic, a literature review of epidemiology, physiopathology, differential diagnosis, and treatment is conducted. Furthermore, practical suggestions are offered for short-term management, e.g., regarding the decision on when and where to hospitalize the patient; these proposals do not replace but rather summarize or integrate the current guidelines. The book is designed both for emergency physicians and cardiologists, who will be the first to evaluate and treat patients with arrhythmias or potentially arrhythmic problems in the emergency setting. It will also be a useful textbook for students and residents in Cardiology and Emergency Medicine.

This book describes the role of basic and advanced imaging techniques in the diagnosis of different types of cardiomyopathy, including dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, restrictive cardiomyopathy, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy and infiltrative/storage cardiomyopathies. While the main focus is on echocardiography, the applications of cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography are also described. Throughout, a clinically oriented approach is employed: detailed attention is paid to differential diagnosis and numerous high-quality images depict the main features of the various types of cardiomyopathy. Consideration is also given to the genetics of cardiomyopathies, with analysis of genotype-phenotype relationships. Finally, the potential value of imaging in prognostic assessment and in guiding treatment is described.

In the last decade, genetics has been emerging as a primary issue in the diagnosis and management of cardiomyopathies. This book is intended to be a state-of-the-art monograph on these diseases, describing their genetic causes, defining the molecular basis and presenting extensive descriptions of genotype–phenotype correlations. Other chapters are focused on the role of clinical observation, on ECG and echocardiography. With its highlight on the most recent discoveries in the field of molecular genetics as well as on the correct clinical approach to patients with heart muscle disease, the book is aimed at physicians and clinical cardiologists with a particular interest in myocardial diseases and in their genetic causes.