Characteristics of South Korean Patients with Hereditary Transthyretin Amyloidosis

This retrospective cross-sectional study included 18 patients from unrelated families harboring mutations of the transthyretin gene (TTR), and analyzed their characteristics and geographical distribution in South Korea.

The included patients had a diagnosis of systemic amyloidosis, clinical symptoms, such as amyloid neuropathy or cardiomyopathy, and confirmation of a TTR gene mutation using genetic analysis recorded between April 1995 and November 2014.

The mean age at disease onset was 49.6 years, and the mean disease duration from symptom onset to diagnosis was 3.67 years. Fifteen of the 18 patients were classified as mixed phenotype, 2 as the neurological phenotype, and only 1 patient as the cardiac phenotype. The most-common mutation pattern in South Korea was Asp38Ala, which was detected in eight patients. Thirteen patients reported their family hometowns, and five of the eight harboring the Asp38Ala mutation were from the Gyeongsang province in southeast Korea. The other eight patients exhibited a widespread geographical distribution. A particularly noteworthy finding was that the valine at position 30 (Val30Met) mutation, which was previously reported as the most-common TTR mutation worldwide and also the most common in the Japanese population, was not detected in the present South Korean patients.

South Korean patients with hereditary TTR amyloidosis exhibited heterogeneous TTR genotypes and clinical phenotypes. The findings of this study suggest that the distribution of TTR amyloidosis in South Korea is due to de novo mutations and/or related to the other countries in East Asia.