News Releases & Research Results Study develops a method to accurately predict prognosis and treatment response in patients with heart failure ―Elucidates the clinical importance of DNA damage in myocardium in heart failure―

Results of R&D by a research group of Professor Issei Komuro, Specially Appointed Assistant Professor Seitaro Nomura, and Specially Appointed Researcher, Toshiyuki Ko of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, the University of Tokyo Hospital, Graduate Student Kanna Fujita of the Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, the University of Tokyo, Professor Hiroyuki Aburatani of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo, and others.

• The team developed a method to analyze the degree of DNA damage in human cardiac muscle cells. Based on the analysis of the DNA damage levels in cardiac muscle cells in 58 patients with heart failure (patients with heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy), it was found that poor treatment response and prognosis in patients are related to significantly high levels of DNA damage in myocardium prior to treatment.
• The results revealed that quantification of DNA damage in the myocardium can make it possible to accurately predict therapeutic effects or prognosis before the start of treatment for heart failure (for which predicting the effectiveness of medications or the course of illness is very difficult prior to treatment).

This R&D was conducted with the support of Practical Research Project for Life-Style related Diseases including Cardiovascular Diseases and Diabetes Mellitus by AMED.

The results of research and development were published on September 26 in JACC: Basic to Translational Science, an American scientific journal.

Ko T., et al. Quantification of DNA Damage in Heart Tissue as a Novel Prediction Tool for Therapeutic Prognosis of Patients with Dilated Cardiomyopathy, Journal of the American College of Cardiology
DOI:10.1016/j.jacbts.2019.05.010