Effect of carvedilol on left ventricular function in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy

We performed a study to examine the clinical use of carvedilol and its effects on the clinical status and systolic functions in children with DCM. The study include,thirteen patients with idiopathic DCM with a mean age 3 ± 2.6 years and who were treated with carvedilol adjacent to standard heart failure theapy (ACEI, diuretics and digoxin) were entrolled in the study. At a follow up of six rnonthes,the clinical condition of the patients and symptoms of heart failure according to NYI-IA classfication show significant improvement, started after one month of treatment with carvedilol by p value <0.05 and advanced in 3 and 6 monthes to reach p< 0.001. Systolic BP , diastolic BP and HR significantly decreased in the first month of treatment in comparison to them before initiation of carvedilol.Sirnilarly, SBP and DBP significantly more decreased in 3,6 monthes in comparison to baseline level with a p value <0.001 and p <0.05 respectively also, HR significantly decreased with p <0.05 . LVEF and LVFS significantly improved from 35.3 + 10% to 49.7 ± 15.9% and froml6.8 ± 7.5% to 28 ± 12°/o respectively following carvedilol treatment.In Conclusion: carvedilol is well tolerated in children with dilated cardiornyopathy, with low incidence of adverse effects. The dose of carvedilol in our study seems to be safe and efficient as it is initiated in small doses, and gradually increased over a period of several weeks to ensure safety of the patient.