ST2, a Novel Biomarker for Cardiac Remodeling in Adults With Congenital Heart Disease

The remarkable improvement in survival of children with congenital disease has led to a continuously growing number of adults with congenital heart disease in the developed world. Many of these patients had had cardiac surgery at early age, the may live for many years with pressure overload, volume overload, systolic or diastolic dysfunction, cyanosis or any combination of the above. These past and ongoing cardiac insults often result in significant cardiac remodeling. A biomarker for fibrosis and remodeling may have enormous clinical and prognostic value for these patients.

Serum biomarkers are now integrated in many fields in medicine. In cardiology, a number of biomarkers are used. In the last decade, our group has focused on the natriuretic peptides as markers for heart disease in infants and children. This resulted in many studies and more than 25 publications in the medical literature. We believe that the newly discovered cardiac marker, ST2, will emerge as an important addition to cardiac evaluation in the coming years.The aim of this study is to measure ST2 levels in patients with congenital right heart disease and correlate ST2 levels to clinical status, imaging and prognosis.