Comparative study on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in dogs and cats

Now, more than 50 years later, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy has been transformed from a rare and largely untreatable condition into a common genetic disease with management strategies that allow realistic aspirations for improved quality of life and advanced longevity. Cardiomyopathy is defined as a primary disease of the myocardium. Most animal cardiomyopathies are idiopathic diseases that are not the result of systemic heart disease or other primary heart disease. The cause has been identified in some cases as a genetic mutation and in others as an inherited trait. In animals (mainly dogs and cats), cardiomyopathies are classified as dilated cardiomyopathy, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy and restrictive cardiomyopathy. The present study addresses, comparatively, the topic of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in dogs and cats.