ABSTRACT
The diagnosis idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy on morphological criteria is difficult and questions have been raised whether the site of sampling may influence the histologic evaluation. The present study is based on 7 heart specimens of patients who died with a definitive diagnosis of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. In each heart 3 to 5 endomyocardial biopsies were taken from both the right and left ventricle, from sites comparable to those in the living patient. The tissue samples were evaluated histologically and the histopathology contractility failure [HCF] index was calculated. The results endorse that a wide scatter exists among different sampling site. The overall index, however, showed a statistically significant [P <0.05] difference in only one heart specimen. It thus appears that right ventricular endomyocardial biopsies are as reliable as those obtained from the left ventricle, at least in as vanced cases of dilated cardiomyopathy and as long as a fair number of biopsies is available for evaluation