Transcripts
DR. CORNEL:
So what can we conclude from
all of that? Cardiac involvement is uncommon,
and when acute cardiomyopathy occurs it is
recoverable and should be vigorously treated, and
it should be considered and diagnosed early.
Chronic or late involvement are
more likely to result from hypertension, I
believe, than from any direct involvement of the
heart in the acute process. But those things
should be anticipated.
I believe this continued close
follow-up is important. Kids are reluctant to
come to hospital, and who can blame them, but it
does matter. We are doing them and other
children a service by the follow-up.
There were a couple of questions
I know about the arrhythmias and I looked at the
literature. I could find no report of a large
number of a arrhythmias in the chronic follow-up
of HUS.
I spoke to several colleagues,
both in Ottawa and in a couple of other Canadian
centers, and working with us now in Ottawa is
Dr. Gow, an arrhythmia specialist, who used to
be at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
Neither the cardiologists who
you would expect to see the arrhythmias nor the
nephrologists I spoke to have really seen very
many arrhythmias.
That being said it would
astonish me if there were not some, at least.
The TMA must effect all the tissue everywhere in
the body and the conducting tissue in the heart
is vulnerable, it has a little more richer blood
supply than some other parts of the heart. And
I think it is an area that might be targeted.
And so late arrhythmias might
very well occur with scarring late and of this
tissue. And that concludes my presentation.
