Congestive cardiomyopathy in uraemic patients on long term haemodialysis

Five uraemic patients who developed progressive cardiac failure with clinical evidence of congestive cardiomyopathy at the start or during haemodialysis treatment were studied. The diagnosis of cardiomyopathy, for which there was no apparent cause, was confirmed by angiocardiographic and haemodynamic studies. These showed a significant increase in left ventricular end-diastolic volume over normal values obtained in 12 patients without uraemia. The mean velocity of myocardial fibre shortening was significantly decreased, as was the index of normalised rigidity. Three of the five patients presented the complete picture of the disease. The other two also had considerable ventricular dilatation and a decreased index of normalised rigidity but normal ejection fraction and only moderately decreased myocardial contractility indices. This suggests that there may be primary involvement of normalised heart muscle rigidity followed by secondary changes in myocardial contractility in uraemic patients with congestive cardiomyopathy.