Association between mid-wall late gadolinium enhancement and sudden cardiac death in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and mild and moderate left ventricular systolic dysfunction

Background—Current guidelines only recommend the use of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) for the primary prevention of sudden cardiac death (SCD) in those with a left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF)<35%. However, registries of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests demonstrate that 70-80% of such patients have a LVEF>35%. Patients with a LVEF>35% also have low competing risks of death from non-sudden causes. Therefore, those at high-risk of SCD may gain longevity from successful ICD therapy. We investigated whether late gadolinium enhancement cardiovascular magnetic resonance (LGE-CMR) identified patients with DCM without severe LV systolic dysfunction at high-risk of SCD. Methods—We prospectively investigated the association between mid-wall late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) and the pre-specified primary composite outcome of SCD or aborted SCD amongst consecutive referrals with DCM and a LVEF≥40% to our center between January 2000 and December 2011, who did not have a pre-existing indication for ICD implantation. Results—Of 399 patients (145 women, median age 50 years, median LVEF 50%, 25.3% with LGE) followed for a median of 4.6 years, 18 of 101 (17.8%) patients with LGE reached the pre-specified end-point, compared to 7 of 298 (2.3%) without (HR 9.2; 95% CI 3.9-21.8; p<0.0001). Nine patients (8.9%) with LGE compared to 6 (2.0%) without (HR 4.9; 95% CI 1.8-13.5; p=0.002) died suddenly, whilst 10 patients (9.9%) with LGE compared to 1 patient (0.3%) without (HR 34.8; 95% CI 4.6-266.6; p<0.001) had aborted SCD. Following adjustment, LGE predicted the composite end-point (HR 9.3; 95% CI 3.9-22.3; p<0.0001), SCD (HR 4.8; 95% CI 1.7-13.8; p=0.003) and aborted SCD (HR 35.9; 95% CI 4.8-271.4; p<0.001). Estimated hazard ratios for the primary end-point for patients with a LGE extent of 0-2.5%, 2.5-5% and >5% compared to those without LGE were 10.6 (95%CI 3.9-29.4), 4.9 (95% CI 1.3-18.9) and 11.8 (95% CI 4.3-32.3) respectively. Conclusions—Mid-wall LGE identifies a group of patients with DCM and LVEF≥40% at increased risk of SCD and low-risk of non-sudden death who may benefit from ICD implantation.