Is low hospital procedural volume associated with worse outcomes after septal myectomy and alcohol septal ablation for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?
Low hospital volume for septal myectomy is associated with higher mortality and costs, reinforcing the need to refer patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy to centers of excellence.
In US hospitals from 2003 through 2011, most centers that provide septal reduction therapy performed few SM and ASA procedures, which is below the threshold recommended by the 2011 American College of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association Task Force Guideline for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. Low SM volume was associated with worse outcomes, including higher mortality, longer length of stay, and higher costs. More efforts are needed to encourage referral of patients to centers of excellence for septal reduction therapy.
Kim et al. (2016) studied this question.