Does relief of outflow tract obstruction in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy improve long-term survival? Implications for lowering the threshold for surgical myectomy and alcohol septal ablation

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common cardiac genetic disease, with a high prevalence of 1 in 500 individuals, irrespective of gender or race (1). Rising awareness of this disease in recent decades, through first-of-their-kind societal guidelines both in the United States and Europe, the growth of national centers of excellence, improvements in advanced imaging and genetic testing, and the initiation of disease-specific pharmaceutical trials, has brought a bolus of patients to advanced clinical care. These patients are asking important questions with regards to quality of life, how best to live with this disease, the effects on their progeny and extended family, and importantly whether available therapies merely palliate disease or provide meaningful survival benefit.