for the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Outcomes investigators H ypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a common genetic heart disease with a population prevalence ratio of approximately 1:500. 1 Early HCM cohort studies reported a high mortality due to sudden cardiac death (SCD) and heart failure but were limited by a significant selection bias. 2 Contemporary survival studies have shown that the prognosis for most individuals with the disease may be better than described previously, particularly when it is managed in line with current clinical practice guidelines, 3 but the excess mortality that HCM conveys when compared with the general population remains unclear. 4,5 We sought to compare the survival of patients with HCM in a large multicenter European cohort with that observed in the general population using contemporaneous country, agestratified, and sex-stratified European mortality data.
Methods
Study Design and OverviewThe present study conformed to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. 6 Data from a retrospective, multicenter, longitudinal cohort-the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Outcome Investigators 7,8 -were used for this cohort study. The data, analytic methods, and study materials will not be made available to other researchers for purposes of reproducing the results. The study was approved by the local ethics committees in all centers with the exception of the Institute of Cardiology at the University of Bologna (Italy), where the committee was informed, but approval was not required under local IMPORTANCE It is unclear whether hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) conveys excess mortality when compared with the general population.OBJECTIVE To compare the survival of patients with HCM with that of the general European population.