Cardiac Alterations in Patients with Familial Lipodystrophy

Abstract

Familial lipodystrophy is a rare genetic condition in which individuals have, besides metabolic changes and body fat deposits, a type of cardiomyopathy that has not been well studied. Many of the patients develop cardiovascular changes, the most commonly reported in the literature being the expression of a type of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This article, presented as a bibliographic review, reviews the clinical and cardiovascular imaging aspects in this scenario of cardiomyopathy in a rare metabolic disease, based on the latest scientific evidence published in the area. Despite the frequent association of congenital lipodystrophy and ventricular hypertrophy described in the literature, the pathophysiological mechanisms of this cardiomyopathy have not yet been definitively elucidated, and new information on cardiac morphological aspects is emerging in the aegis of recent and advanced imaging methods, such as cardiac magnetic resonance.