Study background and objective: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common genetic cardiovascular disorder and is estimated to have affected one out of every 500 people. The symptoms of HCM can be diagnosed from early childhood and include dyspnea on exertion, chest pain, pre-syncope, and syncope resulting from the left ventricular (LV) outflow tract obstruction, LV systolic and diastolic dysfunction, and ventricular and supraventricular arrhythmia.
Material and methods: We assessed the effect of the LV mass index on syncope and sudden death in 60 HCM patients who were more than 16 years of age and referred to Rajaie Cardiovascular, Medical and Research Center between 2009 and 2012. The patients were studied using magnetic resonance imaging.
Findings: The study results indicated that the patients were on average 45.53±16.85 years old. The t-test showed that gender exerted no influence on the following variables: palpitations; family history; maximum thickness of the LV wall; sudden death; and syncope. In contrast, the age variable had a meaningful effect on the maximum thickness of the LV wall, LV mass, and LV mass index. There was no significant relationship between the LV mass index and sudden cardiac death.
Conclusions: Our results were indicative of a negative and significant relationship between age and all of the aforementioned variables. Also, there was no significant relationship between the LV mass index and sudden cardiac death.