Consider the Full Impact of Symptom Burden for Patients With Obstructive HCM When Choosing Treatment
Obstructive HCM can affect more than the heart—symptoms can take a toll on day-to-day activities1
Patients with symptomatic oHCM may present with chest pain, fatigue, exertional dyspnea, palpitations, dizziness, and syncope.2 Symptom progression can be gradual — patients may be doing worse than they realize by adapting their daily routine to manage their condition.2-5 These adaptations can result in patients living according to their limitations and also make recognition of symptoms more difficult.1,4 Ultimately, their decreased physical activity and anxiety over the condition can have a negative influence on a patient’s quality of life.1
Because HCM is estimated to be underdiagnosed* there may be more people with the condition than suspected.6 Currently, the estimated prevalence of HCM ranges between 1 in 200† to 1 in 500‡ people in the general population.7,8 The majority of HCM cases are obstructive and among these patients, 66% are symptomatic.9 When patients are diagnosed it may be as late as young adulthood, or in mid-life, (median age at diagnosis, 45.8 years, SHaRe Registry) when the disease has progressed.10
This can result in serious complications such as NYHA Class III/IV heart failure (~43%), atrial fibrillation (18-28%), stroke or other thromboembolism (~6%), and rarely, sudden cardiac death (<1%/year).11-13 Obstructive HCM can even progress while patients are on treatment which can also contribute to these complications.14
- *Estimated undiagnosed range is calculated using the prevalence range of 1:200 to 1:500, the estimated US population (334,668,850 in April 2023), and the estimated diagnosed population (~100,000) based on 2013 ICD-9 claims data.6
- †The 2015 Semsarian publication identified that the prevalence of HCM gene carriers could be as high as 1:200.7
- ‡The CARDIA study (published in 1995) was a multicenter, US-population-based echocardiography study of 4111 subjects (aged 23-35) that identified the prevalence of HCM as 1:500 people in the general population.6
When Dani was diagnosed with symptomatic obstructive HCM, she was first prescribed an oral medication. When her symptoms and obstruction didn’t improve she eventually needed open-heart surgery, a myectomy.
Her symptoms did improve initially but within a matter of months, Dani was symptomatic again, and her obstruction had returned. How would you counsel a patient like Dani?
Without your help, patients may overlook the impact that obstructive HCM has had on their lives5
Because some people adapt their lifestyle to symptomatic obstructive HCM, ask patients or their care partners about their limitations of activity to get a complete picture of disease severity4,5
- How is symptomatic obstructive HCM limiting them?
- What activities are they cutting back on or stopping?
- How often do you experience palpitations, dizziness, or chest pain?
- What do they want and expect out of treatment?
AHA/ACC guidelines on HCM recommend shared decision-making between
the healthcare provider and patient to manage their condition2
You can provide patients the possibility of symptom reduction and improved function, regardless of where they are in their journey with obstructive HCM2,15
Recommendation from AHA/ACC/Multisociety Guideline for the Management of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy2
Recommended treatments for symptomatic obstructive HCM
Conventional2
The role of 1L treatment options recommended in the AHA/ACC/MS Guideline is that of symptom management. Due to limited evidence from randomized controlled trials, management is often based on nonrandomized or limited data.
CAMZYOS2,15,16
Uniquely targets the source of obstructive HCM.§ The first and only FDA-approved cardiac myosin inhibitor to have a Class 1 recommendation when symptoms persist on 1L therapy.¶ Studied with and without background therapy in 2 phase 3 trials and their ongoing long-term extensions.
Invasive2
Guideline-recommended septal reduction therapy for patients whose symptoms are not relieved by 1L pharmacological therapy.¶
- §CAMZYOS is an allosteric and reversible inhibitor selective for cardiac myosin that helps to modulate the number of myosin heads in the off state. This reduces the number of myosin-actin cross-bridges that form.15
- ¶Symptoms include effort-related dyspnea or chest pain and occasionally other exertional symptoms (eg, syncope, near syncope) that are attributed to LVOTO and interfere with everyday activity or quality of life despite beta blocker or nondihydropyridine calcium channel blocker.2