Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy is characterized by diastolic dysfunction, systolic dysfunction and electric abnormalities. The exact prevalence of this pathology still unknown.

The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and to assess the factors related to this pathology.

Thirty-five cirrhotic patients had been enrolled prospectively for clinical examination, biologic tests, ECG and echocardiography.

The mean blood pressure was 6.7±0.8cm Hg and the mean cardiac frequency was 77±11 BPM.

Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy was diagnosed in 46%. Prolonged QT was noticed in 23%. Twenty-three percent of patients had diastolic dysfunction. Systolic dysfunction was found in 3%.

Left ventricle was dilated in 6% of patients and left-ventricular hypertrophy was found in 34%. Twenty percent of patients had systolic dysfunction of the right ventricular and 23% had diastolic dysfunction of the right ventricle. The left auricular dilatation was noticed in 40%.

Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy was correlated to female sex (sex-ratio 4 vs. 1.7; P=0.046), hepatitis B (6.2% vs. 21%; P=0.002), gastric varices(12.5% vs. 15.6%; P=0.05), the previous history of variceal bleeding (12.5% vs. 10%; P=0.04), the previous history of SBP (6.2% vs. 5.3%; P=0.02), the previous history of hepatic encephalopathy (25% vs. 5.3%; P=0.03), and the existence of left-ventricular hypertrophy (31.3% vs. 5.3%; P=0.033).

Cirrhotic cardiomyopathy is frequent as it was present in 46% of our patients. It was correlated to the complications of cirrhosis that had happened in the past medical history.