Magnitude of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy and Risk of Sudden Death in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy

Sudden death has been recognized as a possible consequence of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy since the first modern descriptions of the disease. 1 , 2 However, despite 40 years of investigation, the search for a way to identify patients who have a high risk of dying suddenly has been frustrated by certain features of this disorder, including the frequent absence of symptoms before sudden death, 2 – 5 the great variation in clinical presentation and prognosis, 3 – 5 the relatively low prevalence of the disease, 6 , 7 and the difficulty of enrolling large study populations without bias due to referral of patients at tertiary centers. 8 – 10 Several factors . . .