Transient cardiac ballooning is not best nomenclature for Takotsubo cardiomyopathy as it does not capture all variants of this syndrome. Stress cardiomyopathy is a much better term for this syndrome.

摘要

With great interest, we read recently published article 'Transient cardiac ballooning-The syndrome" in the Clinical Cardiology. It is the first time that I saw the term 'Transient Cardiac Ballooning" being used for this syndrome. This term has never been mentioned in any other published literature and does not capture all variants of this syndrome. Initially, this syndrome was described as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy due to the similarity of the left ventricular cavity to the Japanese fishing pot used for trapping octopus. Since original description of this syndrome by Dote et al in 1991, at least 4 variants have been described with one of them having totally different appearance in comparison to the classic type which has ballooning like appearance. In English literature, new terms such as ampula cardiomyopathy, transient apical ballooning, or apical ballooning syndrome were used to describe this entity which was later changed to stress or stress-induced cardiomyopathy as other variants emerged without much similarity to the classic ballooning appearance.