Author(s)

Chaodi Luo, Yanjie Yang, Chun Yang, Xiang Hao, Zhenzhen Duan, Guoliang Li, Gang Tian^*

Department of Cardiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China.

Non-compaction cardiomyopathy is a rare form of cardiomyopathy; its most common clinical manifestations are heart failure (HF), ventricular arrhythmia, thromboembolism, and sudden cardiac death. We report a rare case of a 63-year-old man with chest tightness, worsening lower leg edema, dyspnea, and decreased exercise tolerance. He had a medical history of gastric cancer treated with subtotal gastrectomy and post-operative chemotherapy with paclitaxel and fluorouracil three years ago. At that time, he was diagnosed with non-compaction cardiomyopathy, and the thickened and reticulated trabecular muscle was exclusively confined to left ventricular apex. Five months ago, he was admitted to our hospital with heart failure and treated for dilated cardiomyopathy, echocardiography revealed severe trabecular noncompact myocardium in both ventricles, which was confirmed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR). It is generally accepted that non-compacted myocardium forms in the early embryonic stage, which raises a question in our case whether acquired factors, such as antineoplastic drugs, potentially accelerate the pathological progression of non-compaction cardiomyopathy. Considering there are disparities between current screening tools such as echocardiography and CMR regarding diagnostic criteria, multi-detector CT may be an alternative examination method that could provide a new perspective for diagnosis.

Non-Compaction Cardiomyopathy, Antineoplastic Drugs, Heart Failure, Diagnosis

Luo, C. , Yang, Y. , Yang, C. , Hao, X. , Duan, Z. , Li, G. and Tian, G. (2020) Do Antineoplastic Drugs Play an Additional Role in the Progression of Non-Compaction Cardiomyopathy? A Case Report. Case Reports in Clinical Medicine, 9, 144-153. doi: 10.4236/crcm.2020.96021.