Anti-cardiac troponin antibodies have been studied in different types of clinical diseases and in healthy populations. A systematic review of published data on anti-troponin antibodies was carried out (search performed on PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge and Scopus databases). From title and abstract analysis, thirty-three articles were included that met the pre-specified criteria; after full-text analysis, nine articles were excluded. Most studies assessed anti-troponin I antibodies. The prevalence of anti-cardiac troponin antibodies in healthy individuals ranged from 0.0% to 20.0%. The prevalence of anti-troponin I autoantibodies in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) ranged from 7.0% to 22.2%. Other conditions under study were myocardial infarction, ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM), peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM), Chagas disease, Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD) and renal transplantation. In the different patient populations studied, anti-cardiac troponin antibodies have been shown to be either positively or negatively associated with prognostic and clinical features. In what concerns a possible value as biomarkers, these assays have not emerged up to the present moment as important aids for practical clinical decisions in cardiac or other types of patients. In what concerns pathophysiology, anti-cardiac troponin autoantibodies may play a role in different diseases. It can be speculated that these antibodies could be involved in perpetuating some degree of cardiac injury after an event, such as myocardial infarction or PPCM. The major function of the heart is its contractile function, and cardiac muscle contains sarcomeres, which include different types of molecules, of which actin and myosin are essential for strength generation during contraction. Other molecules, such as cardiac troponins, play a role of regulation concerning cardiac muscle contraction. Cardiac troponins I and T have been shown to be different molecules than the corresponding ones in skeletal muscle, and have gained importance as cardiac biomarkers (1,2).Research has shown that antibodies against cardiac troponins exist in different settings, and questions about their role in the cardiovascular pathological continuum have emerged over the last years. The possible role of cardiac troponin autoantibodies in disease processes [and particularly in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM)] has gained interest (3-6).Animal models in mice have demonstrated that anticardiac troponin I autoantibodies are capable of inducing heart dilatation and dysfunction, apparently through interactions with the calcium balance in cardiomyocytes (7). Okazaki et al. showed that in mice antibodies to cardiac troponin I stained the surface of cardiomyocytes, implying the presence of troponin I on the cell surface (differing from cardiac troponin T) (7). Göser et al. immunized mice with cardiac troponin I, leading to severe inflammation of the myocardium, cardiomegaly, fibrosis and 30% mortality over 270 days (8). However, in a study carri...
