A study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology aimed at determining transplant free survival for children with dilated cardiomyopathy DCM over 20 years and identify the clinical characteristics at diagnosis that predicted mortality. Out of 1 953 children 1 199 were in the early cohort and 754 were in the late cohort. The rates of echocardiographic normalization 30 and 27 and heart transplantation 24 and 24 were similar however the death rate was higher in the early cohort than in the late cohort 18 vs. 9 . Being in the early cohort independently predicted death. Thus it was concluded that children with DCM have improved survival in the more recent era. Moreover it seems to be associated with factors other than heart transplantation which were equally common in both eras.