Background：The cardiomyopathy have increasingly become the leading cause of death in muscle dystrophy patients. Fat content was reported to be associated with cardiac dysfunction.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the trajectory of fat content during the phase of muscle dystrophy and to explore its association with the onset of myocardial progression.
Methods: We retrospectively screened muscle dystrophy patients admitted to our center between July 2020 and September 2023. The Body Fat Percentage (BFP)levels during three years after admission were collected for each patient to evaluate the whole-body fat deposition. Group-based trajectory modeling (GBTM) was performed to detect the trajectories of BFP. Cardiomyopathy were confirmed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) late gadolinium enhancement. Cox proportional hazard regression model was adopted to identify potential risk factors for cardiac adverse events.
Results: Overall, 224 patients were enrolled for analysis. Three trajectory groups were identified: low-level (L-BFP) BFP (81/224), middle-level BFP (M-BFP) (94/224), and high-level BFP (H-BFP) group(49/224) group.The adverse cardiac event of patients in the three groups after trajectory analysis were significantly different(P = 0.031), meanwhile, The H-BFP group remained associated with cardiovascular progression risks (hazard ratio for the H-BFP group: 3.02, 95% CI: 1.37, 6.68, P = 0.018)
Conclusion: The trajectories of BFP could help identify patients with high risk for cardiovascular progression.Further preventative strategies is required for those patient with those risk factors of obesity.