Transcript
Announcer:
This is Heart Matters on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Valmiki Maharaj, who’s the Director of the Heart Failure Clinic, the Cardiac Amyloidosis Clinic, and the Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Program at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He’ll be sharing insights on how we can improve early recognition of transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis, or ATTR-CM. Here’s Dr. Maharaj now.
Dr. Maharaj:
I think the biggest step forward is raising awareness. ATTR-CM, even though it's considered a rare disease right now, should no longer be considered as rare. It's maybe considered as uncommon, but it's gaining in recognition, and it's gaining in prevalence and incidence because the diagnostic pathway has been simplified.
So, education, especially for early trainees, residents, and fellows, but even seasoned healthcare providers, which may include cardiologists, primary care providers, internal medicine providers, and also, neurologists, hematologists, and orthopedic surgeons—all these providers are seeing these patients and not even realizing that they may have ATTR-CM. So, I really think awareness and education are really the next best steps to ensure earlier recognition.
I do think the diagnostic pathway has been simplified and streamlined as people are able to recall, "Okay, these are the red flag signs. This is a patient that has some extracardiac signs as well." If we can go through the sequence of, "Okay, I looked at my ECG, and I have my echo. Something looks slightly suspicious between the two. This patient's not behaving exactly how I'd expect for typical HFpEF or HFrEF," then I think the monoclonal protein testing, the nuclear scintigraphy imaging, and the diagnostic steps can become relatively straightforward. And at any time, if people get confused along the way, I think they certainly have a contact that they can get ahold of to help them along those diagnostic steps.
And finally, as therapies, which are now out there for these patients, continue to improve, these newer therapies have shown that earlier intervention is actually quite beneficial for improving major adverse cardiac outcomes for these patients. We'd be doing a disservice to the patient if we could not identify this earlier. So, I think earlier recognition would be better for having a longer-lasting impact on our patients and their long-term outcomes.
Announcer:
That was Dr. Valmiki Maharaj discussing strategies for early recognition of ATTR-CM. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Heart Matters on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening!
