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Clinical awareness and early detection of ATTR-CM may be lacking. One study assessed the degree to which there is a lack of awareness among clinicians and offered suggestions on how to resolve it.

ATTR-CM, or transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy, is a disease that is often misdiagnosed. ATTR-CM presents as a restrictive cardiomyopathy and is associated with a high rate of morbidity and death. It occurs most often in older people, and as life expectancy goes up, rates are increasing. Therapy for ATTR-CM is most effective in the early stages of the disease; however, late or misdiagnosis reduces the chances of patients receiving appropriate care.

Clinicians and nuclear medicine specialists in Latin America were sent two online surveys to find out how much they knew about ATTR-CM. One survey asked if ATTR-CM was known in different clinical situations, and the other inquired about availability of diagnostic tools and studies.

Surveys were sent to 21 countries between May 30 and July 21, 2021, and responses were accepted through July 24 via e-mail, Whatsapp, Facebook, and Twitter. To find people to take the survey, the authors used their personal databases and asked recipients to send the survey to their contacts. No institutional databases were used and none of the people who took the survey knew about it ahead of time.

The first survey generated 406 responses from 17 countries, while the second got 82 responses from 14 countries. Even though most clinicians have access to the right diagnostic tools, there is a significant lack of awareness. Survey results show that in most Latin-American countries, very few patients are checked for ATTR-CM.

The surveys showed how important it is to have educational programs and other steps to raise clinical awareness and find ATTR-CM early, so that patients can get treatment and care for the disease on time.

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Source
Mut, F., Carvajal, I., Camilletti, J., Erriest, J., Alexanderson, E., & Grossman, G. B. (2022). Cardiac amyloidosis in Latin America: Gaps and opportunities to increase awareness of the disease. Findings from the AMILO-LATAM research group. Journal of Nuclear Cardiology, 1-10. doi:10.1007/s12350-022-03005-5>