American Heart Association volunteer expert on HCM, James E. Udelson, M.D., is Chief, Division of Cardiology; Director, Nuclear Cardiology Laboratory; professor, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts.

Offering perspective on AHA Scientific Sessions 2020 Presentation P1732 
copyright American Heart Association 2020

"I think over time it's really important to understand the longer term safety here. I mean, these patients, if a drug like this is being used, it's going to be used for a long time, many years, actually, if they're not going to have surgery. And of course the safety information we have here is only about six months long in only 120 patients. And small number of patients had a pretty important reduction in ejection fraction. You know, they had a very robust depression of their heart function. You know, that eventually came back after the drug was stopped, but when you have, you know, a modest number of patients studied for six months in a condition that will need to be treated for years, really, it'll be helpful to have some longer term safety followup of the patients in this study and ongoing studies as well."