Reduced oxidative stress in parallel to improved cardiac performance one year after selective removal of anti-beta 1-adrenoreceptor autoantibodies in patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy: data of a preliminary study

Patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC) were treated with selective immunoadsorption to remove anti‐beta 1‐adrenoreceptor autoantibodies (anti‐beta1A‐AB). After one year, the effect on cardiac performance and oxidative stress was tested. Extracorporeal immunoadsorption of the whole IgG class in IDC patients for the removal of anti‐beta1A‐AB reduced oxidative stress in parallel to an improvement of cardiac performance. However, the non‐specificity of IgG adsorption means that these beneficial effects cannot be attributed exclusively to anti‐beta1A‐AB removal. In an open clinical pilot study enrolling 8 patients with IDC prior to and one year after selective immunoadsorption of anti‐beta1A‐AB, plasma markers for oxidative stress—thiobarbituric acid‐reactive substances (TBARS), lipid peroxides (LPO) and anti‐oxidized low‐density lipoprotein autoantibodies (anti‐oxLDL‐AB)—were measured in parallel to evaluation of the left ventricular function using conventional echocardiography and wall motion analysis by tissue Doppler imaging. After one year, TBARS (Wilcoxon test with bootstrapping simulation for paired data: 95% confidence interval of the P value 0.020 to 0.029) and anti‐oxLDL‐AB (P = 0.025 to 0.035) were decreased in parallel to an improvement of the peak systolic wall motion velocity (P = 0.006 to 0.01) and left ventricular ejection fraction (P = 0.002 to 0.02). For changes over the study period, a direct correlation with borderline significance (P = 0.076) was calculated for TBARS to the left ventricular diameter in the diastole. One year after selective immunoadsorption for anti‐beta1A‐AB removal, patients with ICD show a reduction in oxidative stress and a parallel improvement in cardiac performance. J. Clin. Apheresis © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.