Anxious/Depressive Symptoms Alter the Subjective Perception of Heart Failure Severity in Transthyretin Cardiac Amyloidosis

Abstract

The subjective perception of cardiac symptom severity is considered a main treatment target in the management of transthyretin-related cardiac amyloidosis (CA), as opposed to objective prognostic markers such as N-terminal pro b-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), which objectively reflects the severity of heart disease. Nevertheless, anxious and depressive symptoms in patients with CA might affect subjects perceptions of disease, creating a potential gap between objective and subjective parameters. We assess the impact of such bias in consecutive patients with CA. A total of 60 patients aged 62 to 88 years with CA were recruited. The level of anxiety and depression was measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and the subjective perception of symptoms severity by the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ). Finally, NT-proBNP plasma levels at rest and glomerular filtration rate were measured. Nearly 1/2 of the patients (48%) reported clinically relevant levels of psychologic symptoms. Higher levels of anxious and depressive symptoms were significantly linked to lower KCCQ scores. Furthermore, the relation between NT-proBNP and KCCQ was significant only when anxious and depressive symptoms were low (β = -0.86, p = 0.002; β = -0.86, p = 0.002, respectively) and medium (β = -0.49, p = 0.004; β = -0.45, p = 0.004, respectively) but was otherwise lost. Depression and anxiety in patients with transthyretin-related CA required assessment and management. In conclusion, patients with depression/anxiety have a clear disconnect between their personal assessment and objective measures of cardiac symptoms, with a major influence on the patients' wellbeing and on their subjective response to treatments in clinical trials.