You are called to assess a pregnant woman who presents to your hospital complaining of shortness of breath. She is 36 weeks pregnant with twins and tells you she had been getting progressively short of breath over the last month but put it down to the physical effects of the twin pregnancy in her abdomen. However last night she couldn’t get her breath lying flat, had to sleep sitting up on 3-4 pillows and feels that “it is much worse”. On examination she has a respiratory rate of 24/min, SpO2 = 92%, HR 105/min, BP 95/45 and you can hear crepitations in both lung fields. Her initial blood tests come back showing a raised plasma BNP and a bedside ECHO is done by a helpful colleague – who says “subjectively her LV isn’t contracting very well”.

Hi everyone,

This week I sit down with Dr Faith Njue the most qualified person here in WA to discuss the rare but important disease – peripartum cardiomyopathy. (See Faith’s Bio below).

Join us in our wide ranging discussion which touches on the diagnostic challenges, demographics, proposed mechanisms and general principles involved in managing these complex patients.

Thanks Faith for a great discussion!

Dr Faith Njue – Bio

Faith Njue graduated from the University of Western Australia and completed cardiology training in Perth. She undertook further subspeciality training in advanced heart failure/ heart transplantation at Fiona Stanley Hospital and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute in Canada. Thereafter, she undertook further fellowship in cardio-obstetrics at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford (UK).

She has special interest in women’s cardiovascular health, heart disease in pregnancy and heart failure. Faith runs the dedicated Western Cardiology cardio-obstetrics clinic, designed to support women at risk of or with pre-existing heart conditions, through preconception counselling, pregnancy and into the post-partum period. Cardio-obstetrics is an expanding subspecialty that focuses on prevention, early detection, and appropriate management of cardiovascular disease in pregnancy.

She holds public consultant positions at Sir Charles Gairdner and Fiona Stanley hospitals. She is part of the Advanced heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant team at FSH. She is the cardiology clinical lead for High Risk pregnancy at FSH.

Anaesthesia and peripartum cardiomyopathy Chapman, K. Njue F, Rucklidge M. BJA Education, Volume 23, Issue 12, 464 – 472

Melanie Ricke-Hoch, Tobias J. Pfeffer, and Denise Hilfiker-Kleiner. Peripartumcardiomyopathy: basic mechanisms and hope for new therapies. Cardiovascular Research (2020) 116, 520–531. doi:10.1093/cvr/cvz252​

Bauersachs J, König T, van der Meer P, et al. Pathophysiology, diagnosis and management of peripartum cardiomyopathy: a position statement from the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology Study Group on peripartum cardiomyopathy. Eur J Heart Fail. 2019 Jul;21(7):827-843. doi: 10.1002/ejhf.1493. Epub 2019 Jun 27. PMID: 31243866​

2018 ESC Guidelines for the Management of Cardiovascular Disease During Pregnancy. European Heart Journal 2018. Vol 39;3165-3241​

Bromocriptine:

Koenig T, Bauersachs J, Hilfiker-Kleiner D. Bromocriptine for the Treatment of Peripartum Cardiomyopathy. Card Fail Rev. 2018 May;4(1):46-49. doi: 10.15420/cfr.2018:2:2. PMID: 29892477; PMCID: PMC5971672

Hilfiker-Kleiner D, Haghikia A, Berliner D, Vogel-Claussen J, Schwab J, Franke A, Schwarzkopf M, Ehlermann P, Pfister R, Michels G, Westenfeld R, Stangl V, Kindermann I, Kühl U, Angermann CE, Schlitt A, Fischer D, Podewski E, Böhm M, Sliwa K, Bauersachs J. Bromocriptine for the treatment of peripartum cardiomyopathy: a multicentre randomized study. Eur Heart J. 2017 Sep 14;38(35):2671-2679. doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehx355. PMID: 28934837; PMCID: PMC5837241.