Maximum left ventricular thickness and risk of sudden death in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
Iacopo Olivotto, MD*,*,
Roberto Gistri, MD*,
Pasquale Petrone, MD*,
Elena Pedemonte, MD*,
Daniela Vargiu, RN* and
Franco Cecchi, MD*
* Cardiologia S. Luca, Azienda Ospedaliera Careggi, Florence, Italy

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Figure 1 Distribution of maximum left ventricular (LV) thickness among 237 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), according to age. The stacks in each bar represent the percentage of patients in each age group and LV thickness class at the time of the first diagnosis of HCM.
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Figure 2 Annual rates of cardiovascular mortality according to maximum left ventricular (LV) thickness at diagnosis. Solid bars = total cardiovascular mortality; shaded bars = sudden death; open bars = congestive heart failure/stroke-related death.
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Figure 3 Kaplan-Meier curves showing cumulative survival according to maximum left ventricular (LV) thickness. Survival free of cardiovascular mortality is shown for four different thickness classes. Because no event occurred in patients with maximum LV thickness 15 mm, this particular subgroup was excluded from the analysis, for added clarity. A comparison of survival curves showed that there was no trend toward increasing mortality for increasing values of maximum LV wall thickness.
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