Healthy Living Tips

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a heart disease specifically of the heart’s muscle wherein no obvious condition or symptom causes a portion of become thickened or hypertrophied. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the number one cause of SCD or sudden cardiac arrest in varying age groups, particularly, in young athletes.

Any disease affecting the heart’s muscle is called “cardiomyopathy”. In hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, myocardial disarray occurs wherein the muscles cells are not aligned normally. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy also disrupts the heart’s electrical functions.

It is believed that the cause of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a particular gene mutation in one of the muscle cells of the heart. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy can be described as non-obstructive or obstructive depending on the extent of blockage of the blood outflow from the heart’s left ventricle.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy occurs in all races but most studies and research done centers on Americans, Europeans and Japanese patients. In the United States, about 0.5 percent of the overall population has hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

The symptoms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy may include angina or chest pain, shortness of breath, palpitations, extreme fatigue, fainting, and lightheadedness. The factors that increases the risk of sudden cardiac death in persons with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy include age at the time of first diagnosis (30 years below), incidence of aborted sudden cardiac arrest, family history of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, recurrent fainting, and slow heart rhythms.

In patients suffering hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, classification of their risks is crucial to try to identify if they are at risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Defibrillator therapy is suggested to those at high risk. In obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the treatment of symptoms is focused on reducing the outflow from the left ventricular. Majority of patients achieve successful medical therapy.

The first medications prescribed for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy are beta-blockers such as propranolol, atenolol, metoprolol and bisoprolol. If symptoms persist, the doctor may also add disopyramide to the beta-blocker]. Calcium-blockers may be used as alternative to beta-blockers.

It is important to note that the management of most symptoms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy do not have to resort to medical interventions such as surgery or “alcohol septal ablation”. However, it may be more difficult to treat the severe symptoms of non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy since there is no noticeable obstruction to treat. Symptoms may improve with verapamil medical therapy. Verapamil is used for the treatment of irregular heartbeats and high blood pressure. Diuretics are best avoided since they reduce the volume of blood supply to expand the outflow tract of the left ventricular of the heart, leading to further obstruction to the blood flow. If all other treatments fail to control the symptoms, cardiac transplantation is considered.

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