Category: News

Coronavirus Guidelines for HCM Patients

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In consultation with numerous HCM specialists across the U.S., the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association has compiled a document of guidelines for HCM patients to follow during the current coronavirus crisis.

Some of the specific recommendations are as follows:

  1. Patient with class 3 or 4 heart failure – specifically those with depressed ejection fractions and those awaiting transplantation – should be advised to stay close to home and minimize exposure in social gatherings.
  2. All patients should be encouraged to practice good personal hygiene including frequent hand washing and to use of disinfectants on all surfaces, doorknobs and banisters.
  3. If a HCM patient tests positive for the virus, they should contact their HCM specialist immediately in order to coordinate care with their local physicians and HCM team.

You can find the whole document here.

Additionally, the HCMA has recorded a series of informative webinars with several
HCM experts which you can find here.

Could Artificial Intelligence Be Useful for HCM Screening?

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A study by researchers from Mayo Clinic published this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that an artificial intelligence algorithm was able to detect hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, commonly known as HCM, from EKG results with impressive accuracy, particularly among younger patients.

In order to “teach” the computer, the researchers used digital 12-lead ECGs from 2,448 patients with HCM along with 51,153 age- and sex-matched controls. The technology was then tested on 612 HCM patients and 12,788 controls.

The findings showed that the technology was able to identify HCM in a high number of cases, even where the EKG appeared “normal” to the human eye.

The researchers believe that this technology, when refined, may prove to be an efficient tool for HCM screening in the future. The team plans to continue testing the technology in greater subject samples in order to further refine its performance.

See also:

Mayo Clinic News Network

Health Analytics

 

Biventricular Pacemaker For Non-Obstructed HCM Patients?

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A small study of  29 patients conducted recently in the U.K. found that the use of a biventricular pacing  in patients with non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy improved symptoms of breathlessness and improved exercise capacity as demonstrated during oxygen consumption testing.

Medications are the only treatments currently available to non-obstructed patients. The authors of this study hypothesized that biventricular pacing could be a viable way to address exercise limitations in non-obstructed patients if medications have been ineffective.

Larger trials may establish biventricular pacing as a viable treatment for non-obstructed patients in the future.

The Future of HCM Care

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Dr. Stephen Heitner, together with his colleagues at Oregon Health & Sciences University, published an article last week in the European Journal of Heart Failure which gives a glimpse into the treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in the future.  Although recent publications have stated that the majority of HCM patients today have a favorable prognosis when receiving appropriate treatment, a heavy disease burden continues to be placed upon patients.  Hence, better and more effective treatments for HCM are still needed in order to lessen this burden.

Continue reading “The Future of HCM Care” →

Atrial Fibrillation? Try Giving Up Alcohol

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A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that drinkers suffering from atrial fibrillation who stopped drinking for the period of the study significantly reduced episodes of atrial fibrillation. 

According to doctors, alcohol consumption appears to be a significant risk factor and trigger for atrial fibrillation, while teetotaling appears to have a profound impact.

Dr. John Osborne, an American Heart Association spokesperson, said the benefit from giving up drinking was similar to results seen from drugs used to treat atrial fibrillation.  Even if patients are not able to completely abstain from alcohol, Osborne advised cutting back significantly. “It costs nothing and led to a substantial reduction in hospital rates. People in the abstinence group also lost an average of 3.8 kilograms [8.4 pounds] in six months,” he said.

Not everyone thinks that teetotaling is a workable treatment for afib, however. Critics say that encouraging abstinence is unrealistic and is not a permanent solution to the problem.  In fact, a planned follow-up study had to be shortened due the difficulty of finding participants willing to abstain from drinking for a whole year.

 

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Cytokinetics Announces its Phase 2 Clinical Trial – “Redwood-HCM”

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Cytokinetics today announced that its Phase 2 double-blind study of its experimental drug CK-274 entitled “REDWOOD-HCM” (Randomized Evaluation of Dosing With CK-274 in Obstructive Outflow Disease in HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) has begun enrollment.  The trial will enroll patients with symptomatic, obstructive HCM.

CK-274 is a next-generation cardiac myosin inhibitor which the company hopes will prove to be beneficial for the treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).

There are currently two companies in clinical trials for HCM:  Cytokinetics and MyoKardia. You can read more about their efforts here and here.

 

Racial Differences in HCM

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A recent study  found that African-American patients with HCM tend to be younger and more symptomatic than their white counterparts. Additionally, these patients are less likely to undergo septal reduction therapies or have genetic testing.

The implications, according to Dr. Neal Lakdawala of Brigham and Women’s Hospital who is an author of the study, is that doctors should always consider the possibility of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in patients with left ventricular hypertrophy.  If diagnosed with HCM, these patients should be referred to specialists with experience in treating HCM.  This could potentially help these patients avoid the two most devastating complications of HCM:  sudden death and stroke.

 

More HCM Research is Needed

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A recent study in Europe found that HCM patients’ risk of death continues to exceed the risk in the general population.

This study looked at 4893 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy treated at 7 different European HCM centers between 1980 and 2013. Although the statistics improved for those who were treated more recently, this study makes it clear that there is still much room for improvement in risk stratification and treatment for patients with HCM.

Overweight HCM Patients Fare Worse

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This week, researchers from the eight HCM centers comprising the Sarcomeric Human Cardiomyopathy Registry [SHARE Registry] published a paper that every HCM patient should take to heart.

The sobering findings are that overweight HCM patients have a higher incidence of obstruction, heart failure and atrial fibrillation than their normal weight counterparts. As a result of this study, the researchers suggest heightened attention to weight management and exercise in order to prevent disease-related progression and complications.

Continue reading “Overweight HCM Patients Fare Worse” →

Data From HCM Registry to Inform Personalized HCM Treatment in Future

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Several years ago, researchers from the University of Virginia (UVA) and the University of Oxford announced a joint project involving a large international registry of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) patients to facilitate research into HCM. Backed with funding from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute, this project, known as the HCM Registry, includes data from 2,750 patients with HCM at 44 sites in six countries. 

This week, researchers from UVA announced their first findings from this registry which suggest that HCM patients can be separated into two basic groups:

  1.  Patients with a known genetic mutation who are not obstructed but have scarring of the heart muscle;
  2. Patients who do not have a known genetic mutation and do not exhibit scarring, but who do have a significant amount of obstruction to blood flow.

According to Dr. Christopher Kramer of UVA, this information should provide doctors with information that allows them to better assess the degree of risk to any particular patient, and to help inform a treatment strategy for each patient based on his or her unique profile.