Amyloid cardiomyopathy from diagnosis to treatment in daily practice

Amyloidosis is a disease caused by the accumulation of amyloid fibril in the extracellular space of organs and soft tissues. Amyloidosis classification is made according to the type of precursor protein. Although amyloid accumulation can be observed in various organs such as heart, kidney, liver, gastrointestinal and/or autonomic nervous system; the worst prognosis type of organ involvement is cardiac amyloidosis. Among many types of amyloidosis, almost all clinical cases of cardiac amyloidosis are caused by transtiretin amyloidosis (ATTR) or light chain amyloidosis (AL or primary systemic). Cardiac ATTR can be hereditary (ATTRm) or wild type (ATTRwt). The frequency of cardiac involvement and prognosis of cardiomyopathy varies between the types of amyloidosis and clinical symptoms vary depending on the organ involvement pattern. Variable clinical phenotype and often non-specific clinical features can cause delays in diagnosis and a multidisciplinary (hematology, pathology, radiology, nuclear medicine, neurology, nephrology, cardiology, rheumatology, gastroenterology) approach is required in diagnosis. The developing diagnostic methods give the clinician early diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis. Amyloid accumulation should be demonstrated by imaging methods and tissue biopsy is necessary in patients with suspected cardiac amyloidosis. Once the precursor protein that causes amyloidosis has been identified, treatment of the underlying disease and heart failure is performed in symptomatic patients. It has been shown that prognosis can be corrected with early diagnosis and treatment approaches. In this review, it is aimed to raise awareness about cardiac amyloidosis disease, current diagnostic methods and treatment approaches that we can use in our daily practice will be discussed