Cardiac sarcoidosis completely mimicking biventricular arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy
András Vereckei1, Gábor Katona1, Katalin Révész1
1Department of Medicine and Hematology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
Insights
Cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) mimics other heart conditions like arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM). Autopsy confirmed CS in a patient initially diagnosed with ACM, highlighting diagnostic challenges.
Area of Science:
- Cardiology
- Pathology
- Medical Diagnostics
Background:
- Cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) presents diverse symptoms, often mimicking other cardiac diseases such as arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM).
- Accurate differentiation between CS and ACM is clinically significant for appropriate patient management and prognosis.
Observation:
- A 70-year-old female initially diagnosed with biventricular ACM showed symptoms of heart failure.
- Extracardiac sarcoidosis signs appeared later, but initial diagnostic tests for CS were inconclusive.
- The patient unfortunately passed away from sepsis with multiorgan failure, with autopsy confirming CS.
Findings:
- A recently developed ECG algorithm, applied retrospectively, suggested CS in 2015, challenging the initial ACM diagnosis.
- Autopsy confirmed cardiac sarcoidosis, validating the retrospective ECG algorithm's diagnostic capability.
Implications:
- This case emphasizes the diagnostic challenge of CS and its potential to mimic ACM.
- The new ECG algorithm shows promise for improving the early and accurate differential diagnosis of CS versus ACM.
- Highlighting the need for continuous evaluation of diagnostic tools in complex cardiac cases.
Abstract:
Cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is a chameleon of cardiology, and it can mimic different cardiac diseases; among them is arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM). We admitted a 70-year-old female patient with heart failure symptoms in 2015, who fulfilled all major ECG and non-invasive imaging criteria of biventricular ACM. She was well with the recommended medications for 3 years, showing only isolated cardiac involvement, but in 2018, cervical and mediastinal lymphadenopathy appeared and cervical lymph node core biopsy histology, bronchoalveolar lavage flow cytometry strongly suggested extracardiac sarcoidosis. Therefore, our suspicion was that sarcoidosis is responsible for the cardiac involvement, which was not confirmed by PET-CT and gallium scintigraphy examinations. At the end of 2018, she died in septicaemia with multiorgan failure, and only autopsy verified her CS. A new ECG algorithm published in 2021 for the differential diagnosis of CS and biventricular ACM, when applied on her ECGs recorded in 2015, suggested the diagnosis of CS.
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