Patients diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) may have an improved opportunity for extended longevity as a result of contemporary cardiovascular treatments and diagnoses, according to a study published May 4 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

In a longitudinal study of 1,000 consecutive adult HCM patients between the ages of 30 – 59, Barry J. Maron, MD, FACC, et al. assessed the long-term outcomes of patients to determine the effectiveness of recent advances in implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), heart transplantation or other therapeutic measures.

Results showed that over the 20-year study, 92 percent of patients (918) survived the average seven-year follow-up period and 91 percent had mild or no symptoms at final evaluation. Of the 8 percent (82) of patients that died, HCM-related death occurred in 40 patients, with 17 from progressive heart failure, 17 from arrhythmic sudden death, and two from embolic stroke. Six deaths occurred in patients who declined ICD therapy. Further, the final HCM mortality rate of 0.5 percent per year (combined all-cause mortality of 1.2 percent per year) was closer to the 0.8 percent all-cause mortality rate of the general U.S. population.

“Results of this study show what contemporary management in a referral HCM population can achieve,” said Paolo Spirito, MD, FACC, in an accompanying editorial comment. “These findings also show that the greatest challenge in the management of patients with HCM is gradually shifting from prevention of sudden death as the predominant threat to the management of heart failure symptoms...”

Keywords: Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic, Death, Sudden, Defibrillators, Implantable, Follow-Up Studies, Heart Failure, Heart Transplantation, Longevity, Longitudinal Studies, Stroke

< Back to Listings