When the third degree is necessary: do pediatricians obtain enough information to detect patients at risk for HCM?

This study was designed to see if pediatricians are collecting sufficient data in family histories to be able to ascertain whether children are at risk for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Surveys were returned by 326 general pediatricians who were members of the Second Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The majority of pediatricians (98.2%) reported taking family histories; however, only 51.2% reported that this information was updated on a regular basis. Only 29.8% of the pediatricians reported including all five risk factors for HCM in a medical family history. Although almost all of the pediatricians reported including first-degree relatives in medical family histories, only 40.5% reported including all second-degree relatives. Female physicians were found to take more thorough medical family histories than male physicians, and foreign medical school graduates were found to take more thorough medical family histories than US medical school graduates. Additionally, graduates of foreign medical schools reported updating medical family histories more often than graduates of US medical schools. This study suggests that pediatricians might not be identifying risks pertinent to the identification of HCM.