Title:Right Ventricle and Autoimmune Diseases
Volume: 20
Issue: 2
Author(s): Luis Francisco Valdés Corona*Tatiana Sofía Rodríguez Reyna
Affiliation:
- Department of Rheumatology, Hospital Angeles Lomas, Huixquilucan, Estado de México
Keywords:
Right ventricle, autoimmune rheumatic disease, pulmonary hypertension, systemic sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Abstract:
Autoimmune diseases can express pathologies in specific organs (e.g. thyroid, pancreas,
skin) or generate systemic pathologies (generalized lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis,
systemic sclerosis), the latter usually present systemic inflammatory phenomena.
Some studies have reported alterations in right ventricular contractility in patients with rheumatoid
arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis, and juvenile idiopathic arthritis,
which may contribute to the known outcome of increased cardiovascular risk. However, there is
not much information available on the causes that generate these alterations, the most likely being
small vessel damage and fibrosis due to subclinical inflammation.1-5 In this sense, the disease in
which the alterations of the right ventricle have been more studied is systemic sclerosis, specifically
at the changes induced due to pulmonary arterial hypertension, this being one of the main causes
of death in this group of patients after the significant decrease in mortality associated with the
sclerodermic renal crisis with the treatment of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.
In this review, we will focus on explaining the structural and functional changes that occur in the
right ventricle of patients with systemic sclerosis, from early alterations to late complications. In
this context, it is necessary to distinguish between right heart alterations that occur in patients with
systemic sclerosis and pulmonary arterial hypertension and those that occur without pulmonary arterial
hypertension and that can be attributed to other causes such as microvascular damage or myocardial
fibrosis.
