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Paul J. Wang, MD Click here to go to the podcast Click here to go to the article. Barry J. Maron, MD…Paolo Spirito, MD Barry J. Maron and associates report on the long-term clinical course of patients withhypertrophic cardiomyopathy after implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) therapy for ventricular tachyarrhythmias. They studied a cohort of 486 high-risk hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients with ICDs from 8 international centers. Of these 486 patients, over 6.4±4.7 years 94 patients or 19% experienced appropriate ICD interventions terminating ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation. Of the 94 patients receiving appropriate ICD therapy, 87 were asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic at the time of appropriate ICD interventions. Of these, 87 patients, 74 or 85% remained in classes I/II without significant change in clinical status during the subsequent 5.9±4.9 years (≤22 years). Among the 94 patients, there was 1 sudden death, and 3 patients died from nonarrhythmic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy-related processes. Post-ICD intervention, freedom from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy mortality was 100% at 1 year, 97% at 5 years, and 92% at 10 years, distinctly higher than ischemic or nonischemic cardiomyopathy ICD trials. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients with ICD interventions reported heightened anxiety in expectation of future shocks; however, they did not affect general psychological well-being or quality of life. The authors concluded that in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, unlike ischemic heart disease, prevention of sudden death with ICD therapy is unassociated with significant increase in cardiovascular morbidity or mortality, nor transformation to heart failure deterioration. ICD therapy does not substantially impair overall psychological and physical well-being. Click here to go to the article. Abdulla A. Damluji, MD, MPH…Robert J. Myerburg, MD Abdulla A. Damluji and associates examined the cost of hospitalization for cardiac arrest using the US Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 2003 to 2012. Using the log transformation of inflation-adjusted cost, the authors examined 1 387 396 patients who were hospitalized after cardiac arrest. They had a mean age of 66 years. Inpatient procedures included coronary angiography in 15% of …