Researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University (BU) Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, shared findings from a new study published in the American Heart Association journal, Circulation: Heart Failure that explores a common cause of heart disease in older men called transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR-CA). The study examines the relationship between spontaneous loss of the Y chromosome (LOY), a condition in aging men where the Y chromosome is spontaneously deleted in blood cells, and ATTR-CA, a progressive disease that causes heart failure and death. The team found that men with a higher proportion of blood cells missing Y chromosomes have a higher ATTR-CA mortality rate, informing future treatment for patients with ATTR-CA.
The study team included investigators from Columbia University, University of Virginia, and Osaka Metropolitan Hospital in Japan. LOY is the most common acquired genetic mutation in men, with more than half of men in their early 90s having lost the Y chromosome in some of their blood cells according to the National Cancer Institute. While LOY has been associated with heart failure survival rates in large population studies, it has never been examined in relation to ATTR-CA.
The current study suggests that men with ATTR-CA who have LOY in greater than 21.6% of their blood cells were 2.6 times more likely to not survive this form of heart disease.
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