The Heart Hive - Cardiomyopathy Study

This study utilises The Heart Hive, an international, online registry of patients with self-reported clinically diagnosed cardiomyopathy or myocarditis, and people with a family history of cardiomyopathy, enrolled on an on-going basis. Registry participants are invited to enter self-reported demographics and health data relevant to their cardiac diagnosis into The Heart Hive online database.

Registry participants with self-reported clinically diagnosed cardiomyopathy will be recruited to an observational, prospective study entailing collection of patient-reported baseline demographic data and clinical risk factors, genotyping, and annual collection of follow up data from patients, national registries (NHS England) and medical records.

In the pilot phase 100 DCM and 100 HCM patients will be recruited to a validation study. Consent will be sought to access medical information from health care providers in order to compare against and confirm self-reported health information. DNA will be obtained from saliva samples and tested in-house using a panel of clinically validated known Mendelian DCM and HCM genes as a second validation of the accuracy of self-reported diagnosis and to confirm equivalent genetic architecture of DCM and HCM in direct-to-patient recruited cohorts compared to traditional centre of excellence clinic-based recruitments.

Following validation of the approach and once funding is in place for genomic studies, larger numbers of cardiomyopathy patients will be recruited to this study from the registry of research willing participants.

Inclusion criteria

• Adult (age 18 and over),
• Males and Females,
• Capacity to provide informed consent,
• Patients with a confirmed diagnosis of cardiomyopathy or myocarditis,
• People with a family history of cardiomyopathy confirmed in a first or second degree relative.

Note: Pregnant women are eligible. This study is observational and entirely separate from clinical care.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients who lack capacity to consent for themselves,
• Vulnerable groups (e.g. those under 18, prisoners, those in a dependent relationship, the mentally ill).
• Patients with a confirmed history of coronary artery disease:
• who have been informed by their treating physician that their cardiomyopathy is secondary to their coronary artery disease, or
• who have undergone previous percutaneous coronary intervention or coronary bypass surgery
• History of primary valvular heart disease or congenital heart disease
• Severe, untreated or untreatable hypertension (systolic blood pressures routinely >180 mm Hg and/or diastolic blood pressures >120 mm Hg)