Intractable Rare Dis Res. 2015;4(1):60-64. (DOI: 10.5582/irdr.2014.01036)

Cardiac amyloidosis in a heart transplant patient - A case report and retrospective analysis of amyloidosis evolution.

Kintsler S, Jäkel J, Brandenburg V, Kersten K, Knuechel R, Röcken C


SUMMARY

Cardiac amyloidosis is a very rare cause of heart failure in heart transplant recipients but an important differential diagnosis in cases of progressive cardiac failure. We report a 72-year-old male patient with the diagnosis of senile systemic amyloidosis (SSA) in a transplanted heart 15 years after transplantation by the initial diagnosis of the dilated cardiomyopathy. Additionally performed immunohistochemical analysis with anti-transthyretin antibody of the cardiac biopsies of the last 15 years enabled the possibility to show the evolution of this disease with characteristic biphasic pattern.


KEYWORDS: ATTR amyloid, senile systemic amyloidosis, heart transplantation, cardiac biopsy

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