Characterisation and risk stratification of patient subgroups in dilated cardiomyopathy by utilisation of an inflammatory 47-plex-biomarker panel

Inflammation has been implicated in the pathogenesis of heart failure (HF) and dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), and many reports have suggested that inflammatory cytokines may predict adverse outcome in these patients (1,2). There is a clinical need to identify specific biomarkers to guide diagnosis and treatment decisions as well as risk stratification in DCM patients (3). In a pilot study, we measured a 13-biomarker panel in our well characterized cohort of DCM patients with (DCMi) and without inflammation (DCM) in endomyocardial biopsies. We could show that these patients show significantly different inflammatory marker profiles, e.g. IL1ß was related to DCM while IL8 and IL10 were associated with DCMi. Using a random forest approach, we could identify further biomarkers (e.g. MCP-1, IL6) that were related with either DCM or DCMi (unpublished). Furthermore, IL8, IL10, IL18, MCP-1, and IL17A were differentially associated with 5- or 10-year survival. Due to these promising results we are currently analyzing a broader panel (47-plex) in our cohort. We aim to utilize DZHK biobank samples to further elucidate inflammatory patterns with the same broader panel of markers and a group of DCM patients comparable to our sample to gain further insight in inflammation pathways or to identify subgroups with distinct patterns to enhance mechanistic knowledge and validate our results.