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

Abstract

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 antitransthyretin antibody of the cardiac biopsies of the last 15 years enabled the possibility to show the evolution of this disease with characteristic biphasic pattern.