Difficulties in diagnosis and variants of the clinical course of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in elderly patients

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a genetically determined disease with a morphological abnormality of myocardial contractile proteins, manifested by asymmetric left ventricular myocardial hypertrophy. Currently, there is evidence that the HCM incidence rate in the population can be up to 1:200, as opposed to the traditionally quoted 1:500. In early works on HCM, this disease has been mostly perceived as a pathology of young and middle age with a high risk of sudden cardiac death. Now it is generally accepted that patients with HCM are likely to reach the old or even geriatric age subject to the benign course of the disease. Comorbidity in such patients contributes to the clinical aspect of the disease. The article deals with problem areas of HCM diagnostics in elderly patients with an emphasis on differential diagnosis of HCM and left ventricular hypertrophy as part of hypertension. It contains a discussion of differential diagnosis of ischemic heart disease in HCM. The authors also focus on the specifics of the course of HCM in old age patients and present factors affecting the prognosis for this group of patients.

hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, advanced age, differential diagnosis, ischemic heart disease, arterial hypertension, atrial fibrillation, prognosis