Chronic respiratory illness as a predictor of survival in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy: the Washington, DC, Dilated Cardiomyopathy Study.

Although bronchial asthma and emphysema have been associated with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy in case-control studies, little is known about the prognostic importance of chronic respiratory disease in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. To study this, we examined history of bronchial asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis, and respiratory medication use as possible predictors of survival in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy using data from a Washington, DC, population-based study (n = 129). The cumulative survival rates among patients with a history of emphysema or chronic bronchitis were 60% and 48% at 12 and 36 months, respectively, compared with 81.8% and 67.2% among patients without emphysema or chronic bronchitis. The survival rates of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy patients with and without a history of bronchial asthma at the time of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy diagnosis were similar. In multivariate analysis using the proportional hazards model, only ventricular arrhythmias and ejection fraction were found to be statistically significant predictors of survival in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. The adjusted relative risk estimate for emphysema and chronic bronchitis was close to one. Thus, the results of this population-based study do not suggest that history of chronic respiratory illness is an independent predictor of survival in idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy.