To elucidate the role of cardiac PAI-1 in dilated cardiomyopathies, we analyzed PAI-1 expression in EMBs of patients diagnosed for dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM, n = 27) or inflammatory dilated cardiomyopathy (DCMi) with either low-grade lymphocytic infiltration (DCMi-low, CD3+ lymphocytes = 14–30 cells/mm2, n = 88), or high-grade lymphocytic infiltration (DCMi-high, CD3+ lymphocytes > 30 cells/mm2, n = 61) (Table 1, Suppl. Here, SERPINE1 is linked to familial dilated cardiomyopathy.