Clinical and echocardiographic evolution of patients with arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy before heart transplantation.

Background: Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) is an inherited cardiomyopathy characterized by fibrofatty myocardial replacement, and accurate diagnosis can be challenging. The clinical course of patients expressing a severe phenotype of the disease needing heart transplantation (HTx) is not well described in the literature. Therefore, this study aims to describe the clinical and echocardiographic evolution of patients with ACM necessitating HTx.

Methods: We retrospectively studied all patients who underwent HTx in our institution between 1998 and 2019 with a definite diagnosis of ACM according to the explanted heart examination.

Results: Ten patients with confirmed ACM underwent HTx. Only four of them had a diagnosis of ACM before HTx. These patients were 28 ± 15 years old at the time of their first symptoms. Patients received a diagnosis of heart failure (HF) after 5.9 ± 8.7 years of symptom evolution. The mean age at transplantation was 40 ± 17 years old. All the patients experienced ventricular tachycardia (VT) at least once before their HTx and 50% were resuscitated after sudden death. The mean left ventricular ejection at diagnosis and before transplantation was similar (32% ± 21% vs. 35.0% ± 19.3%, p = NS). Right ventricular dysfunction was present in all patients at the time of transplantation.

Conclusion: Patients with ACM necessitating HTx show a high burden of ventricular arrhythmias and frequently present a biventricular involvement phenotype, making early diagnosis challenging. HF symptoms are the most frequent reason leading to the decision to transplant.