Dr Fett - Could we????

[SarahsMom]

Dr. Fett,

Do you think it's possible to do our own little internal/board study on PPCM and subsequent pregnancies? We have women on the boards that have gone on to have another child with and without fully recovered heart function. It would be interesting to see those that have not fully recovered, if they had a decline, did they regain the loss? It would also be interesting to see women that have regained "normal" heart function - how many relapsed % decline and if the full function was ever regained again.

Just curious, probably impossible considering all the variables.

Kari

(Oops forgot, might be interesting to see when the reoccurance started - I've heard if it's going to happen again, it's going to be earlier).

[JAMESFETT]

Kari, it is certainly possible for you to do a summary of board members' experience with subsequent pregnancy after PPCM, and such a report would be very interesting. Any such survey is dependent upon securing responses from as many as possible. In a sense, this is what Elkayam et al, have done in solliciting responses from as many PPCM patients as they could find from various centers in the USA. Their reports are to be found in NEJM (2001) and Circulation (2005) medical journals. I have brought together the subsequent pregnancy outcomes report from 16 subsequent pregnancies in 99 PPCM patients identified in Haiti over a 5-year period (we think we have accounted for every subsequent pregnancy known to these 99 women), and will be presenting that as a poster presentation at the American Heart Association Scientific Meeting in Dallas on 14 November 2005--anyone from Dallas area I would welcome to come and it would be so nice to meet you. Our report has also been developed into a manuscript currrently under review by a medical journal. You never know how that process will turn out, but we have had a lot of success. Anyway, I would say it's a good idea, and I encourage you to pursue this.

James

[SusanD]

Dr.Fett....I am in the Dallas area and would love to come hear you speak and meet you in person. Maybe we could arrange a PPCM lunch afterwards ?

[JAMESFETT]

That would be great, Susan D. Maybe we could meet at the exhibit hall where the posters will be mounted? Or anyplace else if that's not convenient. Any other PPCM'ers most welcome. I'd welcome anyone to be with me during the question and answer period or anytime during the poster display, which is up from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. on Tuesday, 15 November 2005. I also submitted abstracts for an oral presentation, but they were not accepted, so my presentation will be informal and poster-side. My poster title is:

Subsequent Pregnancy After Peripartum Cardiomyopathy: A Single‑Institution Prospective Study. James D. Fett, MD, Department of Adult Medicine, Hôpital Albert Schweitzer, Deschapelles, Haiti, 1 Feb 2000 – 31 Jan 2005.

James