Monitoring of Myocardial Involvement in Early Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy Across the Age Spectrum.

BACKGROUND

Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) is characterized by fibrofatty replacement of primarily the right ventricular myocardium, a substrate for life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias (VAs). Repeated cardiac imaging of at-risk relatives is important for early disease detection. However, it is not known whether screening should be age-tailored.

OBJECTIVES

The goal of this study was to assess the need for age-tailoring of follow-up protocols in early ARVC by evaluating myocardial disease progression in different age groups.

METHODS

We divided patients with early-stage ARVC and genotype-positive relatives without overt structural disease and VA at first evaluation into 3 groups: age <30 years, 30 to 50 years, and ≥50 years. Longitudinal biventricular deformation characteristics were used to monitor disease progression. To link deformation abnormalities to underlying myocardial disease substrates, Digital Twins were created using an imaging-based computational modeling framework.

RESULTS

We included 313 echocardiographic assessments from 82 subjects (57% female, age 39 ± 17 years, 10% probands) during 6.7 ± 3.3 years of follow-up. Left ventricular global longitudinal strain slightly deteriorated similarly in all age groups (0.1%-point per year [95% CI: 0.05-0.15]). Disease progression in all age groups was more pronounced in the right ventricular lateral wall, expressed by worsening in longitudinal strain (0.6%-point per year [95% CI: 0.46-0.70]) and local differences in myocardial contractility, compliance, and activation delay in the Digital Twin. Six patients experienced VA during follow-up.

CONCLUSIONS

Disease progression was similar in all age groups, and sustained VA also occurred in patients aged >50 years without overt ARVC phenotype at first evaluation. Unlike recommended by current guidelines, our study suggests that follow-up of ARVC patients and relatives should not stop at older age.