Cardiac remodeling and predictors for cardiac death in long-term follow-up of subjects with chronic Chagas' heart disease: A mathematical model for progression of myocardial damage

Metabolomic Profiling of End-Stage Heart Failure Secondary to Chronic Chagas Cardiomyopathy

Chronic Chagas cardiomyopathy (CCC) is the most frequent and severe clinical form of chronic Chagas disease, representing one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Latin America, and a growing global public health problem. There is currently no approved treatment for CCC; however, omics technologies have enabled significant progress to be made in the search for new therapeutic targets. The metabolic alterations associated with pathogenic mechanisms of CCC and their relationship to cellular and immunopathogenic processes in cardiac tissue remain largely unknown. This exploratory study aimed to evaluate the potential underlying pathogenic mechanisms in the failing myocardium of patients with end-stage heart failure (ESHF) secondary to CCC by applying an untargeted metabolomic profiling approach. Cardiac tissue samples from the left ventricle of patients with ESHF of CCC etiology (n = 7) and healthy donors (n = 7) were analyzed using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Metabolite profiles showed altered branched-chain amino acid and acylcarnitine levels, decreased fatty acid uptake and oxidation, increased activity of the pentose phosphate pathway, dysregulation of the TCA cycle, and alterations in critical cellular antioxidant systems. These findings suggest processes of energy deficit, alterations in substrate availability, and enhanced production of reactive oxygen species in the affected myocardium. This profile potentially contributes to the development and maintenance of a chronic inflammatory state that leads to progression and severity of CCC. Further studies involving larger sample sizes and comparisons with heart failure patients without CCC are needed to validate these results, opening an avenue to investigate new therapeutic approaches for the treatment and prevention of progression of this unique and severe cardiomyopathy.

Nonlinear mathematical model for predicting long term cardiac remodeling in Chagas' heart disease: introducing the concepts of 'limiting cardiac function' and 'cardiac function deterioration period'

Cardiac remodeling has been recently investigated in long term follow-up introducing a simple exponential model to describe the time course of cardiac function and dimension changes in Chagas' disease. In the present study, an improved mathematical model to equate time course and cardiac functional changes has been proposed. Present model has been derived from previously validated intuitive assumptions and tested on data set of outpatients with chronic Chagas' disease (51.3±9.4 years old), followed for up to 10 years in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The variables representing cardiac status at admission were plotted against respective time derivative, which appropriately fit a second order polynomial (adjusted r(2)=0.956; p<0.001), indicating that long term cardiac remodeling followed a Verhulst-Pearl (Logistic) model. The derived Logistic model provided two output constants: a time-function (2.0·10(-3)±5.4·10(-4) months(-1)·%(-1); p<0.001) and an inferior limit for left ventricular ejection fraction (19.0±0.9%; p<0.001), standing for a limit beyond life expectation is unsustainable, in Chagas' disease. Cardiac function deterioration period was promptly derived from the model, representing the period of time following indeterminate stages of the disease when cardiac function start deteriorating, and ranged from 3 to 15.8 years. An example of data of left ventricular ejection fraction of a subject followed during 10 years illustrated the model, further validating its robustness. Present data confirms that, in chronic Chagas' disease, initial insult is connected to the progression of myocardial remodeling and introduces the concepts of limiting cardiac function and cardiac deterioration period.