The Link Between Myotonic Dystrophy Type 2 and Recurrent Ventricular Tachycardia Needs More Research

Myotonic dystrophy type 2 is a rare and poorly understood condition. Even less understood is its relation to recurrent ventricular tachycardia, which is even rarer.

Myotonic Dystrophy Type 2

Myotonic Dystrophy Type 2 is a genetic, inherited disease that leads to progressive muscle weakness. It impacts all muscles in the body including the muscles in the neck, around the joints, and in the face. Prolonged muscle tensing called myotonia is a common symptom.

Patient also face muscle weakness, muscle stiffness, and pain. However, the severity of the condition varies a lot from patient to patient.

This condition is the result of a mutation in a gene called CNBP. What’s crazy is that even though we know that this mutation is what causes the condition, we still don’t know the function of the CNBP gene.

Recurrent Ventricular Tachycardia

Myotonic dystrophy (Type 1 or Type 2) can also affect the heart muscle. One of the things that can occur is ventricular tachycardia. All this mean is that the heart is creating abnormal rhythms.

Ventricular tachycardia can lead to sudden cardiac death.

We don’t have numbers on how many people with the rare condition myotonic dystrophy have this heart condition as well. However, we do know that it is a small number of all patients.

It is clear that we need to better research to explore how these conditions are linked to one another and how we can better support and treat patients.

You can read more about the relationship between these two conditions here.

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