BACKGROUND: Because the final myocardial scar might be theoretically associated with an increased risk of sudden cardiac death, the long-term clinical course of patients who undergo alcohol septal ablation (ASA) is still a matter of debate. In this retrospective multicentre study, we report outcomes after ASA, including survival, analysis of causes of deaths, and association between time and cause of death. METHODS: We enrolled 366 consecutive patients (58 ± 12 years, 54% women) who were treated using ASA and followed-up for 5.1 ± 4.5 years. RESULTS: The in-hospital and 30-day mortality were 0.5% and 0.8%, respectively; the ASA-related morbidity was < 20%. Overall, 52 patients died during 1867 patient-years, which means the all-cause mortality rate was 2.8% per year. The mortality rates of sudden death and sudden death with an appropriate implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) discharge were 0.4% and 1% per year, respectively. Patients with sudden death or appropriate ICD discharge experienced these mortality events at younger age than patients who died of other hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy-related causes (60.8 years [range, 52-71.5 years] vs 72.4 years [range, 64.2-75.2 years]; P = 0.048). A total of 292 patients (80%) had an outflow gradient ≤ 30 mm Hg, and 327 patients (89%) were in New York Heart Association class ≤ II at the last clinical check-up. CONCLUSIONS: ASA had low procedure-related mortality, with subsequent 1% occurrence of sudden mortality events per year and 2.8% mortality rate per year in the long-term follow-up. Patients with sudden death or ICD discharge experienced the mortality events approximately 1 decade earlier than patients who died from other causes not related to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

1st Department of Internal Medicine Cardioangiology International Clinical Research Center St Anne's University Hospital and Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Cardiocentre Podlesí Třinec Czech Republic

Department of Cardiology 2nd Medical School Charles University University Hospital Motol Prague Czech Republic

Department of Internal Medicine 3 Medical University Innsbruck Austria and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates

Department of Interventional Cardiology and Angiology Institute of Cardiology Warsaw Poland

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Outcome of patients ≥ 60 years of age after alcohol septal ablation for hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy