Dilated cardiomyopathy can b diagnosed by several ways. Inmost cases, dilated cardiomyopathy is preceded by Heart Muscle Inflammation that produces flulike symptoms such as fever, chills, and muscle aches.
These symptoms are so common and vague that the cardiomyopathy is usually not diagnosed until heart muscle injury has caused impaired heart function and produced symptoms of heart failure.
Diagnosis is based on assessing the size and function of the heart chambers.
X-ray diagnosis is done by taking a chest X-ray typically reveals the main features of dilated cardiomyopathy:
An enlarged heart and fluid congestion in the lungs.
An electrocardiogram may show evidence of heart damage.
Characteristic abnormalities can also be detected using echocardiography or radionuclide angiography, often called the MUGA scan (equilibrium radionuclide angiocardiogram).
If diagnosis remains in doubt, heart catheterization, sometimes accompanied by a Heart Biopsy, may be performed. Catheterization allows a physician to measure pressures in the heart chambers and to see the heart's structures when a contrast dye is injected into its chambers and vessels through the catheter a thin plastic tube that is inserted in an artery or vein and threaded through it to the heart.
During the procedure, X-ray images of the heart are recorded on film or videotape.
In biopsy, a small sample of tissue is removed from the heart wall and examined under a light or electron microscope. The combined findings of catheterization and heart biopsy usually make it possible to distinguish dilated cardiomyopathy from other forms of heart disease.
Tests may also be used to rule out recognized causes of dilated cardiomyopathy. In most cases no cause can be established. However, blood tests, for example, may sometimes show that the patient has had a recent viral infection known to be associated with cardiomyopathy.
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