The 2014 ESC guidelines on the diagnosis and management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: What is new? [ESC-Leitlinie 2014 zur Diagnose und zum Management der hypertrophischen Kardiomyopathie: Was ist neu?]

The 2014 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines on the diagnosis and management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) comprise 133 recommendations with 506 references. In comparison to the last 10-year-old American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF)/ESC guidelines new data have been added, such as recent studies on genetics, updated recommendations for family and genetic screening, a special emphasis on red flags in clinical symptomatology and diagnostic features for the identification of non-obstructive variants of HCM, on multimodality non-invasive imaging by echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a HCM risk formula for the assessment of sudden cardiac death within 5 years. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that the majority of patients with HCM lead a normal life. This detailed update and the structured recommendations are an excellent summary of the current knowledge on HCM for the cardiomyopathy specialist and also for internists and general physicians. © 2014, Urban & Vogel.