Editorial Can alcohol septal ablation normalize systolic function in HOCM?

This editorial refers to ‘Septal ablation in hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy improves systolic myocardial function in the lateral (free) wall: a follow-up study using CMR tissue tagging and 3D strain analysis’ † by W.G. van Dockum et al., on page 2833 Patients with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (HOCM) and significant left ventricular outflow tract (LVOT) obstruction are prone to dyspnoea, angina, syncope, and sudden cardiac death.1 These clinical features are primarily due to intrinsic myocardial dysfunction, impaired systolic and diastolic function, myocardial ischaemia, and arrhyth-mias. The management of this condition has attracted molecular, clinical, and interventional cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, and epidemiologists. Alcohol septal ablation (ASA) has been shown, in multiple reports, to successfull