Chronic heart failure and serum collagen

Abstract

Heart failure is a highly complex clinical syndrome which involves structural, hormonal, and molecular changes. In heart failure, turnover of the extracellular matrix is the main factor determining cardiac remodeling. The fibrillar interstitial types I and III collagens are the major structural components of the cardiac extracellular matrix. Serum collagen-derived peptides have been proposed as promising early indicators of cardiac remodeling and as useful tools to evaluate myocardial fibrosis noninvasively. Consequently, the assessment of such biomarkers could provide insight into disease progression and risk stratification of chronic heart failure syndrome.