New hope for an unusual form of heart failure

Long summary: Up to 15% of people with a stiff, thickened heart (known as heart failure with preserved ejection fraction) may have cardiac amyloidosis. Advances in cardiac imaging have improved the ability to diagnose the condition, which is caused by clumps of an abnormal protein (amyloid) deposited in heart tissue. Most cases are known as ATTR amyloidosis, which has an inherited form and a non-inherited form. Tafamidis (Vyndaqel), the first drug to treat ATTR cardiac amyloidosis, was approved by the FDA last year.