A Family With Obstructive Cardiomyopathy (Asymmetrical Hypertrophy)

In a recent paper, one of us (Teare, 1958) described 8 examples of a hitherto little recognized type of heart disease under the title Asymmetrical hypertrophy of the heart in young adults. The lesion was thought to be a benign tumour or hamartoma and was confined to the left ventricle, especially in the region of the septum. One of these patients, a woman of 21, had been under the care of Hammersmith Hospital, and by chance a sister was found to have heart disease when ad-mitted there for routine tonsillectomy. Shortly afterwards an apparently healthy brother, aged 16, dropped dead when cycling to work. These findings led us to make a study of the entire family which is reported in this paper. We were able to trace all members of the family for two generations, totalling 23 persons. In 14 of the 19 still alive we performed clinical, radiological, and electrocardiographic examinations. One man (Case 3) aged 47, apparently well, would not permit examination of himself or his four children (Cases 12 to 15). Full clinical details were available in two of the four who died, and the autopsy findings in three. We could obtain no information at all on the man (Case 1) who died in 1923, aged 18, possibly of meningitis (Table I). As can be seen from the family tree (Fig. 1), we found evidence of heart disease in the three sibs; tto t4 Q 77 40 44