Do all Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) patients with recurrent chest pain have cardiac problems?

Abstract

Objectives: Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) is a hereditary autosomal recessive autoinflammatory genetic disorder. One of the important complications of FMF is cardiac disorder. We aimed to research the evaluation of cardiological parameters in FMF cases who had chest pain and MEFV gene variant. Design: Experimental study Setting: This study was conducted at Department of Cardiology and Medical Genetics of Duzce University, Turkey. Subject: Totally, thirty-four individuals with recurrent sharp retrosternal chest pain that exacerbate with deep inspiration and clinically diagnosed as FMF and at least one variant on MEFV gene were included in the study. Interventions: Physical and cardiological evaluation were performed and MEFV gene sequenced for each case. Main outcome measures: To determine if the chest pain is caused by cardiac problems or derived from other problems such as tendonitis, myalgia, etc. in cases with FMF Result: Seven cases (20.5%) had previous history of pericarditis. Two of these cases had small pericardial effusion and one had pericardial thickness. All three were adults. Also, one case (2.9%) had aortic regurgitation, eight cases (23.5%) had mitral regurgitation, thirteen cases (38.2%) had tricuspid regurgitation and one case (2.9%) had pulmonary regurgitation. Valvular disease is seen in over half of the cases. Conclusions: We concluded that cases with FMF who had chest pain and at least one MEFV gene variant have increased risk for cardiac problems. These cases should be routinely followed up life long for cardiac problems.WOS:0007013889000032-s2.0-8510908013