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Arrhythmias and Conduction Disturbances in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis—A Systematic Literature Review

Vrancianu, Cristina Andreea, Gheorghiu, Ana Maria, Popa, Dragos Emanuel, Chan, Jeffrey Shi Kai, Satti, Danish Iltaf, Lee, Yan Hiu Athena, Hui, Jeremy Man Ho, Tse, Gary, Ancuta, Ioan, Ciobanu, Ana, and others. (2022) Arrhythmias and Conduction Disturbances in Patients with Systemic Sclerosis—A Systematic Literature Review. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23 (21). Article Number 12963. ISSN 1422-0067. (doi:10.3390/ijms232112963) (KAR id:97976)

Abstract

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by skin and internal organ fibrosis and microvascular impairment, which can affect major organs, including the heart. Arrhythmias are responsible for approximately 6% of deaths in patients with SSc, and mainly occur due to myocardial fibrosis, which causes electrical inhomogeneity. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of arrhythmias and conduction disturbances in SSc cohorts, and to identify the characteristics and risk factors associated with the occurrence of dysrhythmias in patients with SSc. A systematic literature review using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Scopus databases was performed. Full-text articles in English with arrhythmias as the main topic published until 21 April 2022 were included. Most prevalent arrhythmias were premature supraventricular and ventricular contractions, while the most frequent conduction disturbance was represented by right bundle branch block (RBBB). Elevated concentrations of N-terminal prohormones of brain natriuretic peptides (NT-pro BNP) were associated with numerous types of atrial and ventricular arrhythmias, and with the occurrence of RBBB. A lower value of the turbulence slope (TS) emerged as an independent predictor for ventricular arrhythmias. In conclusion, dysrhythmias are frequent in SSc cohorts. Paraclinical and laboratory parameters are useful instruments that could lead to early diagnosis in the course of the disease.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.3390/ijms232112963
Additional information: ** Article version: VoR ** From MDPI via Jisc Publications Router ** History: received 31-08-2022; accepted 18-10-2022; epub 26-10-2022; collection 11-2022. ** Licence for VoR version of this article: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Uncontrolled keywords: systemic sclerosis, arrhythmias, conduction disturbances
Subjects: R Medicine
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Natural Sciences > Kent and Medway Medical School
Funders: University of Kent (https://ror.org/00xkeyj56)
SWORD Depositor: JISC Publications Router
Depositing User: JISC Publications Router
Date Deposited: 16 Nov 2022 11:14 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2022 06:02 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/97976 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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