title: Historical perspectives on the implantable cardioverter-defibrillator and prevention of sudden death in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
abstract: The implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) was not originally envisioned as a treatment to prevent sudden death (SD) in young people with genetic heart diseases. In the case of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), initially it was not known whether the ICD would be effective in patients with a disease very different morphologically and functionally from coronary artery disease. Nevertheless, several observational clinical studies have shown that the ICD reliably terminates life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias in HCM, and is largely responsible for reducing HCM mortality to 0.5% per year, by preventing SD and changing the natural course of the disease.
authors.affiliation: Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Center, Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, 920 East 28th Street, Suite 620, Minneapolis, MN 55407, USA. Electronic address: hcm.maron@mhif.org.
authors.forename: Barry J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Maron
mesh_terms: D002312:Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D016757:Death, Sudden, Cardiac / Q000517:prevention & control*; D017147:Defibrillators, Implantable; D006801:Humans
keywords: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy; Implantable defibrillators; Sudden death