Contribution of mitral valve leaflet length and septal wall thickness to outflow tract obstruction in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

We sought to examine whether elongation of the mitral valve leaflets in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is synergistic to septal wall thickness (SWT) in the development of left ventricular outflow tract obstruction (LVOTO). HCM is a common genetic cardiac disease characterized by asymmetric septal hypertrophy and predisposition towards LVOTO. It has been reported that elongation of the mitral valve leaflets may be a primary phenotypic feature and contribute to LVOTO. However, the relative contribution of this finding versus SWT has not been studied. 152 patients (76 with HCM and 76 non-diseased age, race and BSA-matched controls) and 18 young, healthy volunteers were studied. SWT and the anterior mitral valve leaflet length (AMVLL) were measured using cine MRI. The combined contribution of these variables (SWT × AMVLL) was described as the Septal Anterior Leaflet Product (SALP). Peak LVOT pressure gradient was determined by Doppler interrogation and defined as "obstructive" if ≥ 30 mmHg. Patients with HCM were confirmed to have increased AMVLL compared with controls and volunteers (p < 0.01). Among HCM patients, both SWT and SALP were significantly higher in patients with LVOTO (N = 17) versus without. SALP showed modest improvement in predictive accuracy for LVOTO (AUC = 0.81) among the HCM population versus SWT alone (AUC = 0.77). However, in isolated patients this variable identified patients with LVOTO despite modest SWT. Elongation of the AMVLL is a primary phenotypic feature of HCM. While incremental contributions to LVOTO appear modest at a population level, specific patients may have dominant contribution to LVOTO. The combined marker of SALP allows for maintained identification of such patients despite modest increases in SWT.