The 20 advances that have defined contemporary hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) emerged as a distinct disease entity in about 1960. Over the subsequent 55-year time span, HCM has undergone vast changes in its perception by the cardiovascular community, often fraught with controversy and misunderstanding, but ultimately benefiting from innovations in therapy and diagnosis, such as echocardiography and cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, implantable defibrillators, surgical myectomy and alcohol ablation, and heart transplantation. Once considered an oddity and exotic disease, HCM can now take its place as a contemporary and treatable disease with relatively low mortality risks. Here we have listed and discussed what we believe to be the 20 most important advances in the evolution of HCM based on more than 50 years of our combined experience with this complex genetic disease.