Charlottesville, Va.-based UVA Health researchers helped identify new ways to predict sudden cardiac death and heart failure risk in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic heart disease that affects as many as 1 in 200 people.
The international study followed nearly 2,700 patients in the U.S. and Europe for an average of about seven years. Researchers found that combining cardiac MRI imaging with blood test data improved their ability to identify patients at highest risk for dangerous complications, according to the May 11 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Christopher Kramer, MD, chief of the division of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, served as co-principal investigator alongside researchers at the University of Oxford in the U.K.
The study found that imaging markers tied to heart scarring and measurements of the heart’s left ventricle could help physicians better predict sudden cardiac death, heart failure and stroke risk. The findings also may help prevent unnecessary implantation of cardioverter-defibrillator devices in lower-risk patients.
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