Restrictive cardiomyopathy

Restrictive cardiomyopathy is a heart muscle disease in which stiff ventricular walls limit filling during diastole, often while systolic contraction remains preserved.

Diastolic dysfunction: Impaired relaxation or filling of the ventricles during diastole. Ventricular stiffness produces this central functional abnormality.
Cardiac amyloidosis: A disease in which amyloid deposits accumulate in the heart and impair its structure and function. Amyloid infiltration is a major cause of restrictive cardiomyopathy.
Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging: An imaging method that uses magnetic fields to characterize cardiac anatomy, function, and tissue. Tissue patterns can distinguish infiltration, storage disease, and fibrosis.
Dilated cardiomyopathy: A heart muscle disease characterized by enlarged ventricular chambers and impaired systolic contraction. Unlike restrictive cardiomyopathy, ventricular dilation and reduced contraction define this form.
Ventricular compliance: The ease with which a ventricle expands as its volume increases. Reduced compliance explains why small increases in filling volume raise pressure sharply.
Hereditary hemochromatosis: An inherited disorder that causes excessive iron accumulation in body tissues. Iron deposition in the myocardium can impair relaxation and lead to restrictive disease.
Endomyocardial biopsy: A procedure that removes small samples of heart muscle for microscopic and molecular analysis. Biopsy can identify infiltrative or storage disorders when noninvasive tests are inconclusive.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: A heart muscle disease involving increased ventricular wall thickness not explained solely by abnormal loading. Both can impair filling, but hypertrophic cardiomyopathy features myocardial hypertrophy and often obstruction.
Pressure-volume loop: A graph showing how a heart chamber's pressure changes with its volume through a cardiac cycle. A steep diastolic pressure-volume relation depicts the stiff ventricle.
Cardiac sarcoidosis: Heart involvement by sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that forms granulomas in organs. Granulomatous infiltration and scarring can produce restrictive cardiac physiology.

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CardiomyopathyBroader topic: It illustrates muscle disease that disrupts filling rather than primarily weakening contraction.