The shape of your heart matters — ScienceDaily

Researchers at Cedars-Sinai’s Smidt Heart Institute have found that patients who have round, baseball-shaped hearts are more likely to develop heart failure and atrial fibrillation than patients who have longer, baseball-shaped hearts. traditional valentine heart.

Their findings, published in Med — Cell Press’ new peer-reviewed medical journal – used deep learning and advanced imaging analysis to study the genetics of heart structure. Their results were revealing.

“We found that people with spherical hearts were 31% more likely to develop atrial fibrillation and 24% more likely to develop cardiomyopathy, a type of heart muscle disease,” said David Ouyang, MD, cardiologist at Smidt. Heart Institute and researcher. in the Division of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine.

The risk was identified after investigators analyzed heart MRI images of 38,897 healthy people from the UK Biobank. Using this same database, the researchers then used computer models to identify genetic markers of the heart associated with these heart conditions.

“By examining the genetics of sphericity, we found four genes associated with cardiomyopathy: PLN, ANGPT1, PDZRN3, and HLA DR/DQ,” Ouyang said. “The first three of these genes were also associated with an increased risk of developing atrial fibrillation.”

Atrial fibrillation, the most common type of abnormal heart rhythm disorder, greatly increases the risk of stroke. The disease is increasing in prevalence and is expected to affect 12.1 million people in the United States by 2030.

Cardiomyopathy is a type of heart muscle disease that prevents the heart from pumping blood to the rest of the body and can eventually lead to heart failure. The main types of cardiomyopathy – dilated, hypertrophic, arrhythmogenic and restrictive – affect up to 1 in 500 adults.

Cedars-Sinai cardiologists say the shape of the heart changes over the years, generally becoming rounder over time and especially after a major cardiac event like a heart attack.

“A change in the shape of the heart can be an early sign of disease,” said Christine M. Albert, MD, MPH, chair of the cardiology department at the Smidt Heart Institute and study author. “Understanding how a heart changes when confronted with disease – coupled with more reliable and intuitive imaging to support this knowledge – is a critical step in preventing two life-changing diseases.”

Ouyang says the findings provide more clarity on the potential use of cardiac imaging to more effectively diagnose — and prevent — many conditions. He also pointed out the need for further studies.

“Large biobanks with cardiac imaging data now provide an opportunity to analyze and define variations in cardiac structure and function that were not possible with traditional approaches,” Ouyang said. “Deep learning and computer vision are also enabling faster and more comprehensive heart measurements that can help identify genetic variations affecting a heart – up to years or even decades before obvious heart disease is present. does not develop.”