Assessment of coronary blood flow in dilated cardiomyopathy with TIMI frame count and relationship with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein

AIM:To evaluate coronary blood flow(CFR) by TIMI frame count(FC) in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy(DCM) who had angiographically proven normal coronary arteries and to compare the results with those of healthy controls and observe the relationship between CFR and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein(hs-CRP).METHODS:Thirty-one DCM patients and 29 healthy control subjects without DCM were involved in this study.All patients and control subjects had angiographically proven normal coronary arteries.TIMI FC was determined for each major coronary artery in each patient and hs-CRP was examined at the same time.RESULTS:TIMI FCs for each major epicardial coronary artery in DCM patients were found to be significantly higher than those in control subjects(left anterior descending coronary artery:(36±7) vs.(27±7) frame;left circumflex coronary artery:(37±7) vs.(30±7) frame;right coronary artery:(37±7) vs.(30±7) frame,respectively,P<0.01.Mean TIMI FC was positively correlated with hs-CRP(R=0.721,P<0.01).CONCLUSION:TIMI FC can be used as an effective method to evaluate CFR in DCM patients.FCs in DCM patients are significantly higher than those in healthy control subjects,and impaired CFR is positively correlated with the inflammatory marker hs-CRP.