Introduction: Basal cardiovascular risk assessment in cardio-oncology is essential. Integrating clinical information, ECG and transthoracic echocardiogram can identify concealed inherited cardiomyopathies (ICMPs) with potential added risk of cardiotoxicity. We aimed to evaluate the impact of our Cardio-Oncology Unit design in detecting concealed ICMPs.
Methods: We carried out a retrospective study of all consecutive breast cancer patients referred to the Cardio-Oncology Unit for cardiac evaluation (2020-2022). ICMPs diagnosis was provided according to ESC guidelines and underwent genetic testing. ICMPs prevalence in this cohort was compared to the highest and lowest frequency reported in the general population.
Results: Among 591 breast cancer patients, we identified eight patients with ICMPs: one arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM), three familial non-ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), three hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and one left ventricular non-compaction cardiomyopathy (LVNC), which has now been reclassified as non-dilated left ventricular cardiomyopathy. The number of ICMPs identified was within the expected range (neither overdiagnosed nor overlooked): ACM 0.0017 vs. 0.0002-0.001 (p 0.01-0.593); DCM 0.0051 vs. 0.002-0.0051 (p 0.094-0.676); HCM 0.005 vs. 0.0002-0.002 (p < 0.001-0.099); LVCN 0.0017 vs. 0.00014-0.013 (p 0.011-0.015). Genetic testing identified a pathogenic FLNC variant and two pathogenic TTN variants.
Conclusion: Opportunistic screening of ICMPs during basal cardiovascular risk assessment can identify high-risk cancer patients who benefit from personalized medicine and enables extension of prevention strategies to all available relatives at concealed high cardiovascular risk.
Keywords: cardio-oncology; cardiomyopathy; genetics.