Progressive Left Ventricular Hypertrophy after Heart Transplantation: Insights and Mechanisms Suggested by Multimodal Images
Recommended Citation
Ananthasubramaniam K, Garikapati K, Williams CT. Progressive left ventricular hypertrophy after heart transplantation: Insights and mechanisms suggested by multimodal images. Tex Heart Inst J. 2016 ;43(1):65-8.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-1-2016
Publication Title
Texas Heart Institute journal / from the Texas Heart Institute of St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, Texas Children's Hospital
Abstract
Immunosuppression is the typical measure to prevent rejection after heart transplantation. Although rejection is the usual cause of cardiac hypertrophy, numerous other factors warrant consideration. Calcineurin inhibitors rarely cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; the few relevant reports have described children after orthotopic kidney or liver transplantation. We present the case of a 73-year-old woman, an asymptomatic orthotopic heart transplantation patient, in whom chronic immunosuppression with prednisone and cyclosporine apparently caused a phenotype of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The natural course of her midapical hypertrophy was revealed by single-photon-emission computed tomography, positron-emission tomography, and 2-dimensional echocardiography. Clinicians and radiographers should be alert to progressive left ventricular hypertrophy and various perfusion patterns in heart transplantation patients even in the absence of underlying coronary artery disease. Toward this end, we recommend that advanced imaging methods be used to their fullest extent.
Medical Subject Headings
Aged; Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic; Female; Heart Transplantation; Humans; Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular; Multimodal Imaging; Positron-Emission Tomography; Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
PubMed ID
27047289
Volume
43
Issue
1
First Page
65
Last Page
68
