Heart valve disease in primary antiphospholipid syndrome.

OBJECTIVES: Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS)-associated heart valve disease (HVD) is well described. Nonetheless, limited data exist on clinical parameters associated with the course of primary APS (pAPS) patients with HVD. The goal of this study was to assess clinical features and related outcomes in patients with APS associated HVD.

METHODS: In this multicentre retrospective study, we identified 33 pAPS patients with HVD (pAPS-HVD group) and compared their clinical course with 128 pAPS patients with normal heart valves on echocardiography (pAPS-control group).

RESULTS: pAPS-HVD patients had more cerebrovascular events 56.3% vs 25% (p= 0.005) and livedo reticularis 24.2% vs 7.8% (p= 0.013) than pAPS-controls. Furthermore, catastrophic-APS (CAPS) (12.1% vs 2.4%, p= 0.034), recurrent thrombosis (33.3% vs 4.7%, p< 0.001), and need for advanced therapy (i.e. IVIG, plasmapheresis or rituximab) were more frequent in pAPS-HVD patients. Anti-B2GPI-IgG. [84.8% vs 63.2% (p= 0.034)], anti-cardiolipin IgG [90.9% vs. 64.8% (p= 0.005)] and triple positive aPL [75.8% vs 56.5% (p= 0.047)] were commoner in pAPS-HVD patients vs pAPS-controls. Ten of the 33 patients with pAPS-HVD underwent valve surgery which was associated with male gender, smoking, arterial limb ischaemia and livedo reticularis.

CONCLUSION: pAPS-HVD patients had a more severe APS clinical course including CAPS and thrombotic events as well as with specific serology namely IgG isotype aPL antibodies and triple positivity. Our data suggest that pAPS-HVD represents a high-risk subgroup of APS patients.