It Is Time to Focus on “Segmental Remodeling” with Validated Biomarkers as “Stressed Heart Morphology” in Prevention of Heart Failure

Stress and Heart in Remodeling Process: Multiple Stressors at the Same Time Kill

Myocardial remodeling is developed by increased stress in acute or chronic pathophysiologies. Stressed heart morphology (SHM) is a new description representing basal septal hypertrophy (BSH) caused by emotional stress and chronic stress due to increased afterload in hypertension. Acute stress cardiomyopathy (ASC) and hypertension could be together in clinical practice. Therefore, there are some geometric and functional aspects regarding this specific location, septal base under acute and chronic stress stimuli. The findings by our and the other research groups support that hypertension-mediated myocardial involvement could be pre-existed in ASC cases. Beyond a frequently seen predominant base, hyperkinetic tissue response is detected in both hypertension and ASC. Furthermore, hypertension is the responsible factor in recurrent ASC. The most supportive prospective finding is BSH in which a hypercontractile base takes a longer time to exist morphologically than an acutely developed syndrome under both physiologic exercise and pressure overload by transaortic binding in small animals using microimaging. However, cardiac decompensation with apical ballooning could mask the possible underlying hypertensive disease. In fact, enough time for the assessment of previous hypertension history or segmental analysis could not be provided in an emergency unit, since ASC is accepted as an acute coronary syndrome during an acute episode. Additional supportive findings for SHM are increased stress scores in hypertensive BSH and the existence of similar tissue aspects in excessive sympathetic overdrive like pheochromocytoma which could result in both hypertensive disease and ASC. Exercise hypertension as the typical form of blood pressure variability is the sum of physiologic exercise and pathologic increased blood pressure and results in increased mortality. Hypertension is not rare in patients with a high stress score and leads to repetitive attacks in ASC supporting the important role of an emotional component as well as the potential danger due to multiple stressors at the same time. In the current review, the impact of multiple stressors on segmental or global myocardial remodeling and the hazardous potential of multiple stressors at the same time are discussed. As a result, incidentally determined segmental remodeling could be recalled in patients with multiple stressors and contribute to the early and combined management of both hypertension and chronic stress in the prevention of global remodeling and heart failure.

Cardiac Biomarkers in Sports Cardiology

Sustained physical activity induces morphological and functional changes in the cardiovascular system. While mostly physiological, they can also become a trigger for major adverse cardiovascular events, the most severe of which are sudden cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death. Therefore, any novel method which can help more accurately estimate the cardiovascular risk should be considered for further studying and future implementation in the standard protocols. The study of biomarkers is gaining more and more ground as they have already established their utility in diagnosing ischemic cardiac disease or in evaluating cardiac dysfunction in patients with heart failure. Nowadays, they are being implemented in the screening of apparently healthy individuals for the assessment of the cardiovascular risk. The aim of this paper is to gather published data regarding the measurements of cardiac biomarkers in athletes, i.e., troponins, myoglobin, CK-MB, NT-proBNP, and D-Dimers, and their potential use in the field of sports cardiology.