A study supported in part by the NIH identified a “new model for predicting outcomes for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), a heart condition with a prevalence of 1 in 500 people and a frequent cause of sudden cardiac death.”
The findings demonstrate that “incorporating prospective data including clinical history, imaging, and blood biomarker data into risk assessment can improve prediction of adverse cardiac events in people with HCM.”
HCM occurs when “he heart muscle becomes larger and thicker than normal, which can block the outflow of the left ventricle, leading to heart failure symptoms, and can lead to rapid, life-threatening heart rhythm abnormalities. It is commonly inherited, and many people with the condition are asymptomatic, pointing toward the need for better risk prediction.”
The study enrolled “close to 2,700 patients with HCM in North America and Europe at 44 sites that had expertise in HCM and cardiac imaging. The researchers collected medical history, blood tests, and cardiac imaging, and followed the study participants for seven years on average. Through this work, they determined that several predictors such as scarring, weight, and function of the heart muscle seen by imaging; history of heart failure; and higher levels of a blood biomarker (NTproBNP), were associated with fatal and nonfatal cardiac events. Sudden cardiac death outcomes were predicted by determining structure and function of the left ventricle by cardiac MRI and the blood biomarker tests. In short, they showed that integrating these study methods into risk assessment gave fuller and more accurate predictions of adverse events.”
