Early genetic screening and cardiac intervention in patients with cardiomyopathies in a multidisciplinary clinic

Abstract Aims Patients with cardiomyopathies are a heterogeneous group of patients who experience high morbidity and mortality. Early cardiac assessment and intervention with access to genetic counselling in a multidisciplinary Cardiomyopathy Clinic may improve outcomes and prevent progression to ad...

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Main Authors: Chandu Sadasivan, Luke R. Gagnon, Deepan Hazra, Kaiming Wang, Erik Youngson, Jissy Thomas, Anita Y.M. Chan, D. Ian Paterson, Finlay A. McAlister, Tara Dzwiniel, Wayne Tymchak, Susan Christian, Gavin Y. Oudit
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2025-06-01
Series:ESC Heart Failure
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Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/ehf2.15202
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Summary:Abstract Aims Patients with cardiomyopathies are a heterogeneous group of patients who experience high morbidity and mortality. Early cardiac assessment and intervention with access to genetic counselling in a multidisciplinary Cardiomyopathy Clinic may improve outcomes and prevent progression to advanced heart failure. Methods and results Our prospective cohort study was conducted at a multidisciplinary Cardiomyopathy Clinic with 421 patients enrolled (42.5% female, median age 58 years), including 224 patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM, 42.9% female, median age 57 years), 72 with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM, 43.1% female, median age 60 years), 79 with infiltrative cardiomyopathy (65.8% female, median age 70 years) and 46 who were stage A/at risk for genetic cardiomyopathy (54.3% female, median age 36 years). Patients were seen in follow‐up at a median of 18 months. A pathogenic/likely pathogenic variant was identified in 28.5% of the total cohort, including 33.3% of the DCM cohort (28% TTN mutations) and 34.1% of the HCM cohort (60% MYBPC3 and 20% MYH7) who underwent genetic testing. The use of angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers/angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor (48.3–69.5% of total cohort, P < 0.001), β‐blockers (58.4–72.4%, P < 0.001), mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (33.9–41.4%, P = 0.0014) and sodium/glucose cotransporter‐2 inhibitors (5.3–27.9%, P < 0.001) all increased at follow‐up. Precision‐based therapies were also implemented, including tafamidis for transthyretin amyloidosis (n = 21), enzyme replacement therapy for Fabry disease (n = 14) and mavacamten (n = 4) for HCM. Optimization of medications and devices resulted in improvements in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) from 27% to 43% at follow‐up for DCM patients with reduced LVEF at baseline (P < 0.001) and reduction in left ventricular mass index (LVMI) from 156 g/m2 to 128 g/m2 at follow‐up for HCM patients with abnormal LVMI at baseline (P = 0.009). Optimization of therapies was associated with stable plasma biomarkers in stage B patients while lowering levels of BNP (619–517.5 pg/mL, P = 0.048), NT‐proBNP (777.5–356 ng/L, P < 0.001) and hsTropT (31–22 ng/L, P = 0.005) at follow‐up relative to baseline values for stage C patients. Despite stage B patients having overt cardiomyopathy at baseline, stage A and B patients had a similarly high probability of survival (χ2 = 0.204, P = 0.652). The overall cardiovascular mortality rate was low at 1.7% for the cohort (0.5% for stage B and 3.3% for stage C) over a median of 34‐month follow‐up. Conclusion Our study demonstrates that a multidisciplinary cardiomyopathy clinic can improve the clinical profiles of patients with diverse genetic cardiomyopathies.
ISSN:2055-5822