Related topics: heart · heart failure · heart muscle

Human heart disease recently found in chimpanzees

While in the past century there have been several documented examples of young, healthy athletes who have died suddenly of heart disease during competitive sporting events, a new study finds that this problem also extends ...

Improving clinical use of stem cells to repair heart damage

Presenting at the UK National Stem Cell Network annual science conference today (13 July), Professor Michael Schneider describes a new approach to treating heart attack and cardiomyopathy using stem cells.

Cardiomyopathy

Cardiomyopathy, which literally means "heart muscle disease," is the deterioration of the function of the myocardium (i.e., the actual heart muscle) for any reason. People with cardiomyopathy are often at risk of arrhythmia or sudden cardiac death or both. Cardiomyopathy can often go undetected, making it especially dangerous to carriers of the disease.

Although in theory the term "cardiomyopathy" could apply to almost any disease affecting the heart, in practice it is usually reserved for "severe myocardial disease leading to heart failure".

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