Contact us:
973-983-7429
support@4hcm.org

66 Ford Road - Suite 213B
Denville, NJ 07834
Gordon Fox • February 9, 2022
Mavacamten instead of septal reduction?
Mavacamten inhibits the movement of myosin, a key component of heart muscle. Jeff16, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Many people first discover they have HCM because blood flow out of their heart is obstructed. Some of these patients eventually need to have their septums reduced physically by surgery ( septal myectomy ) or alcohol septal ablation. Can a drug replace these invasive treatments?

On April 2, 2022 Dr. Milind Y. Desai , a leading HCM researcher and practitioner, will present initial results on mava camten ‘s use in severely obstructed HCM patients. Dr. Desai is Director of the HCM Center at the Cleveland Clinic. Scheduled for the American College of Cardiology meeting in Washington. His talk on “Mavacamten as an alternative to surgical septal myectomy or alcohol ablation in patients with severely symptomatic obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy” will present results from the VALOR-HCM trial.

This will be the first set of results on mavacamten’s use in HCM patients who are obstructed. For further background on mavacamten, see this interview with Dr. Martin S. Maron.

HCMA Blog

A photo-realistic image of  heart, lit from behind, on a black background.
March 11, 2025
Health educator Sabrina Cuddy discusses common arrhythmias in HCM, like atrial flutter/fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation, left or right bundle branch block, PVC, PAC, and others. Some arrhythmias are harmless, while others are serious and need treatment.
Chart representing mavacamten trial results with total patients, and results in blue bar format.
By Gordon Fox March 10, 2025
Camzyos provided significant reduction of obstruction. Initially all patients were obstructed (that is, they had gradients of at least 30mmHg after valsalva maneuvers). After 3 months on Camzyos, about 57% were no longer obstructed. After 6 months, about 70% had no obstruction.
Coronavirus being injected with syringe, with vaccine bottle next  to it.
By Gordon Fox March 10, 2025
The COVID vaccine offers significant benefits with small risks. Not getting vaccinated offers no substantial benefits and fairly large risks. This is the reason HCM specialists unanimously and strongly recommend vaccination.
More Posts
Share by: