Therapeutic implications of a combined diagnostic workup including endomyocardial biopsy in an all-comer population of patients with heart failure: a retrospective analysis.

BACKGROUND

Aetiology of heart failure (HF) often remains obscure. We therefore evaluated the usefulness of a combined diagnostic approach including cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI) and endomyocardial biopsy (EMB) to assess the cause of unexplained cardiomyopathy underlying HF.

METHODS AND

RESULTS

We retrospectively investigated 100 consecutive patients (36% women, mean age 53.6 ± 18.8 years) presenting with unexplained cardiomyopathy (HF with reduced ejection fraction or left ventricular hypertrophy; excluding ischaemic and valvular heart disease; left ventricular ejection fraction 31.6 ± 13.9%, Left ventricular end-diastolic pressure 18.2 ± 9.3 mmHg, heart rate 89 ± 26.6 b.p.m.; mean ± SEM) at the University Medical Center Mainz. We performed electrocardiography, echocardiography, CMRI, and cardiac catheterization with EMB analysed at a Food and Drug Administration-approved reference centre in 100%, 94%, 69%, and 100% of patients, respectively. On the basis of CMRI findings, electrocardiography, echocardiography, and medical history, the exact cause of cardiomyopathy remained uncertain in 37 of 69 cases (53.6%). In EMB, 25% of patients had viral replication, 23% had inflammation defined as lymphocytic infiltrations without active virus replication, 1% had giant cell myocarditis, and 1% had eosinophilic myocarditis. After diagnostic workup including EMB findings, the cause of cardiomyopathy remained unidentified in 14% of the cases, classified as idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in 10% or 4%, respectively. EMB helped to discuss a causal treatment strategy of HF involving immunosuppression or antiviral treatment in 53% of patients, which was opted for in 12% of the patients.

CONCLUSIONS

A comprehensive workup including imaging and EMB in an all-comer population of patients with HF may help physicians to improve diagnostics of unexplained cardiomyopathy in the majority of cases.