Predictive potential of blood biomarkers for subsequent ventricular tachyarrhythmias in patients with chronic heart failure and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction: review

Abstract

The current single-factor prognostic scale for the risk of ventricular tachyarrhythmia in patients with chronic heart failure and reduced left ventricle ejection fraction is considered by most experts to be inconsistent with modern medicine and should be modified. This position directs the efforts of researchers to search for additional prognostic factors, such as serum biomarkers. The last may reflect the state of cardiomyocytes and extracellular cardiac matrix, as well as endogenous and exogenous impacts to these structures. Such information may be important in determining the probability of the presence of myocardial pro-arrhythmic substrate and the electrophysiological conditions necessary to realize its potential. The data presented in this review suggest that concentrations of serum biomarkers may provide additional information for the estimation of personalized arrhythmic risk, which should help to avoid the clinical underestimation of the risk of sudden cardiac death and be a determining factor in the decision to implant a cardioverter-defibrillator.