Inclusion of electric disturbance type cardiomyopathy in the classification of cardiomyopathy: a current review.

There are cases of cardiomyopathy which are not easily classifiable into hypertrophic, dilated or restrictive type. They often show ventricular arrhythmia, right or left bundle branch block, intraventricular conduction disturbance, atrioventricular conduction disturbance, and sinus node dysfunction (sick sinus syndrome). Endomyocardial biopsy in such cases reveals advanced myocardial disease, for which we propose the simpler term "electric disturbance type cardiomyopathy (ECM)". In our consecutive series of studies of cardiomyopathy employing endomyocardial biopsy in 573 cases, 264 (46%) were hypertrophic, 224 (39%) were dilated, and 85 (14.8%) were classified into the ECM.