Noncompaction cardiomyopathy, a frequently overlooked entity (…but beware of over diagnosis!)

Excerpt

Noncompaction cardiomyopathy (NCCM) is recognised as a separate disease entity since the first report in 1984 of a rare case with persistent myocardial sinusoids and a series of 8 paediatric and adolescent patients in 1990 with increased trabeculation of the left ventricular endocardium [1, 2]. Since then, NCCM has been the subject of an increasing number of reports in the medical literature (July 2012: 1127 publications; source www.​ncbi.​nlm.​nih.​gov/​pubmed) and is now recognised as a primary, predominantly genetic disorder of the myocardium [3]. Increased awareness of this disease entity made us recognise more and more cases of noncompaction cardiomyopathy, especially with the help of modern imaging modalities such as contrast echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), allowing better visualisation of the left ventricular cavity [4]. …