Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy

The TaRGET study is a multi-centre, prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial designed to evaluate the potential therapeutic efficacy of tideglusib, a glycogen synthase kinase-3 β inhibitor, in genotype positive arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy.

The goal of this observational study is to create a comprehensive real-world spectrum of T1 mapping measurements across different heart conditions. We aim to establish reference values for how heart tissue characteristics vary in various diseases, which will help doctors better interpret these advanced MRI measurements in clinical practice. The main questions it aims to answer are: What are the normal T1 mapping values for different heart diseases, and how do they compare to healthy hearts? Can we use the simpler "native T1" measurement (without contrast dye) instead of the more complex "ECV" measurement (which requires contrast dye) for diagnosis? Patients with various myocardial conditions will undergo CMR T1 mapping scans. We will analyze the MRI images and clinical records to establish disease-specific reference ranges for T1 mapping parameters, and validate the diagnostic accuracy of T1 mapping

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if Atorvastatin 80 mg is effective to avoid functional right ventricular deterioration in patients affected by Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy. It will also learn about the safety of Atorvastatin 80 mg in this type of patients. The main questions it aims to answer are: 1. Does Atorvastatin 80 mg prevent worstening of the right ventricular functioning? 2. Does Atorvastatin 80 mg prevent the worsening of electric, morphological and biomarkers deterioration? 3. What medical problems do participants have when taking Atorvastatin 80 mg? Researchers will compare Atorvastatin 80 mg to a placebo (a look-alike substance that contains no drug) to see if the drug works to treat Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy. Participants will: 1. Take Atorvastatin 80 mg or a placebo every day for 18 months; 2. Visit the clinic at the enrollment and after 2, 4, 9 and 18 months for checkups and tests; 3. Make a phone call for safety check after 12, 15 and 19 months since the enrollment; 4. Fill out psychological questionnaires

An observational study to assess real-world patient characteristics and clinical course of disease in participants with PKP2-ACM.

The study aims to identify new diagnostic and prognostic markers for CMP that can help predict disease progression. In particular, the study will focus on microRNAs (miRNAs) and spatial transcriptomics, which are emerging techniques that may provide insights into the underlying disease mechanisms. By understanding these markers, the investigators hope to improve the way the investigators diagnose and manage CMP, particularly in terms of predicting progression to heart failure or heart transplantation. The study will evaluate patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (e.g., sarcomeric forms, Anderson-Fabry disease, AL, and TTR cardiac amyloidosis), dilated cardiomyopathy and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. These patients will undergo clinical evaluations, including ECG, echocardiograms, CMR, biopsy analysis, and genetic testing, as well as molecular studies such as transcriptomics and miRNA analysis. This comprehensive approach aims to identify potential new biomarkers for diagnosing and predicting the disease course.

Risk stratification for sudden cardiac death (SCD) in patients with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy (NICM) remains suboptimal. Although current guidelines rely on severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction (left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) \< 35%) as key predictor of arrhythmic risk and clinical indication of prophylactic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), this approach seems inadequate, since registries report that only a minority of NICM ICD carriers experience an appropriate ICD shock during follow-up, whereas out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occur in patients with LVEF\>35% in up to 80% of cases. Moreover, pivotal primary prevention trials (DANISH trial, long-term outcome of the SCD-HeFT trial) failed to demonstrate a net mortality benefit of ICD in patients with NICM. As for most structural heart diseases (SHD), scar-related reentry has been addressed as the pathophysiological mechanism of ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) in patients with NICM, with fibrotic tissue being the substrate of this reentry. Late gadolinium enhancement cardiac magnetic resonance (LGE-CMR) is the gold standard for the non-invasive visualization and characterization of the myocardial fibrosis and according to retrospective studies is detected in nearly 30% of patients with NICM. In latest years, several studies and subsequent metanalyses have explored the correlation between CMR-detected LGE and occurrence of VAs, showing that presence, extent, location (septal vs lateral) and patten (focal vs multifocal vs ring-like) of non-ischemic fibrosis help in stratifying arrhythmic risk. Nonetheless, scar heterogeneity (that is, inherent composition of dense scars vs border zone (BZ), presence of strands of viable myocardium within the scar) has been indicated as a potential novel predictor of VAs. In a recent prospective multicenter registry on patients with class I indication for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) (\>60% with NICM), not only scar mass, but even border zone (BZ) mass and presence of BZ channels were identified as independent predictors for VT occurrence in NICM patients. This BZ mass and BZ channels can be automatically identified using a commercially available, post-processing imaging platform named ADAS 3D LV (ADAS3D Medical SL, Barcelona, Spain), with FDA 510(k) Clearance and CE Mark approval. Thus, CMR-derived BZ mass might be used as an automatically reproducible criterium to reclassify those patients with NICM at highest risk for developing VAs/SCD in a relatively short period of at least 2 years. In the present cohort study, the investigators sought to: i) evaluate the usefulness of CMR-derived BZ mass measurement and identification of heterogeneous tissue channels (HTC) (among other scar characteristics derived from image post-processing) to predict the occurrence of VT events in an international, retrospective, multicenter, unselected series of patients with NICM without previous arrhythmia evidence (main study); ii) subsequently validate these predictors of VT occurrence in a prospectively-collected multicenter cohort study (substudy 1); iii) retrospectively evaluate in the subset of patients with \> 1 LGE-CMR performed as part of standard clinical practice if any change in BZ mass and HTC presence occurs over time and if this correlates with occurrence of VAs (substudy 2).

This study will include patients diagnosed with Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM) in the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi 'an Jiaotong University and other centers, and collect clinical data and biological samples of patients with different ACM phenotypes. Through the establishment of disease cohort and long-term follow-up, to explore the disease characteristics, development law, clinical characteristics, natural course of disease and long-term prognosis of ACM.

This study aims to identify novel inflammatory biomarkers in AC, whether in circulating blood, in situ or as imaging biomarkers to better understand the pathophysiology of the disease and then to determine contribution to the clinical management of patients.