Apical Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy in an African American: A Case Presentation and Literature Review

We present a case of a patient with a two-month history of night sweats, nausea and vomiting, fatigue and shortness of breath on exertion as well as significant weight loss. Prior to arrival at our facility he was diagnosed with apical aneurism and was offered an evaluation with cardiac catheterization but the patient decided on a second opinion and thus came to our facility. The apical aneurism turned out to be apical variant hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is a common echocardiographic misinterpretation and thus necessitating additional imaging modalities such as cardiac MRI. We perform a comprehensive and up to date literature review of apical variant hypertrophic cardiomyopathy as it relates to epidemiology, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment as some variants portend poorer prognosis and it is often misdiagnosed on initial Echocardiography as described in our case presentation.