Alcohol Septal Ablation: A useful tool in our arsenal against hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy

Objective Affecting 1 in 500 individuals; Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is an autosomal dominant cardiovascular disorder which is prevalent throughout the world. Surgical myectomy and alcohol septal ablation (ASA) are two methods currently used for the management of drug refractory Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM). ASA may prove to be a useful, less invasive tool when confronting patients with HOCM especially those who are more elderly or deemed to be a higher surgical risk. Methods Electronic literature search was conducted to identify relevant articles that discussed invasive methods to treat drug refractory HOCM. No limits were placed on timing of the publication or the type of article. Key words and MeSH terms were used to conduct the search and the results were summarized in the relevant section. Results Current evidence suggests that alcohol septal ablation is a safe and effective procedure in treating patients with HOCM with similar short- and long-term outcomes when compared with surgical myectomy. Selection of patient with appropriate assessment is the key for satisfactory outcomes. Conclusion ASA has been shown to be a safe and reliable procedure; advanced imaging techniques and dedicated multi-disciplinary teams can be used to carefully select patients with HOCM. Though surgical myectomy is recommended as gold standard treatment for drug refractory HOCM, however, ASA may play an increasing role in the near future due an ageing population; both ASA and SM can have a synergistic effect in treating those who are affected by HOCM.