A biomarker of collagen production in the heart could help identify patients with sarcomere mutations early, before cardiac fibrosis and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy set in, researchers said. Compared with controls, mutation carriers showed substantially elevated serum levels of C-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen (PICP) whether they already had overt left ventricular hypertrophy or not (69% and 31% higher, respectively, both P<0.001), according to Carolyn Y. Ho, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and colleagues.
