ABSTRACT
It is known that chronic alcoholism causes morphological changes of the myocardium before the development of a specific dilated cardiomyopathy. We studied a group of chronic alcoholics, with normal arterial pressure and without clinical evidence of liver cirrhosis, to evaluate left ventricular function, both before and after withdrawal of ethanol. A M-B mode echo recording of the left ventricle and left ventricular inflow Doppler velocimetry with carotid pulse tracing was performed in each patient within 24 hours of the last alcohol consumption and after a period of abstinence at least 3 weeks. We analysed parameters of left ventricular systolic and diastolic functions, in comparison with a group of normal subjects well matched for age, body surface area and heart rate. The results showed that, in the group of alcoholics, a cardiac hypertrophy exists with increased left ventricular mass and normal parameters of left systolic ventricular function, but with altered ratio PEP/LVET. This last result is the consequence of an abnormal left diastolic ventricular function, as demonstrated from the analysis of the Doppler indexes of left ventricular filling (lower ratio E/A). Left ventricular inflow Doppler velocimetry showed different results in alcoholics and control subjects in the early diastolic flow velocity peak (61 +/- 12 vs 84 +/- 8) and in the peak flow velocity in the atrial contraction phase (62 +/- 10 vs 40 +/- 5.6). We have not observed any change of the echocardiographic parameters after the short period of alcohol withdrawal. We advance the hypothesis that there is an altered diastolic function depending, not only on the hypertrophy of the myocardium, but also on the myocardial interstitial involvement caused by ethanol.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
