Prevalence of Left Ventricular Myocardial Crypts in Japanese Patients

Objective Myocardial crypts are congenital abnormalities associated with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and other conditions. This study assessed the prevalence of myocardial crypts in Japanese patients. Methods Myocardial crypts were evaluated in a consecutive series of 300 patients (13-92 years old) who underwent computed tomography angiography (CTA) because of clinical suspicion of ischemic heart disease. Results We found a myocardial crypt incidence of 9.7% (29 patients) in our study population, with multiple crypts observed in 2.3% (7 patients). Among these, myocardial crypts were found in 2 out of 8 (25%) patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), 1 of which was apical-type HCM. In patients with a single crypt (22 patients), the most common location of the crypt was at the left ventricular apex (16/22 patients, 72.7%), followed by the inferior wall (5/22 patients, 22.7%) and the interventricular septum (1/22 patients, 4.6%). Conclusion The incidence of myocardial crypts observed in our study aligns with that reported in previous studies, although the most common location among the Japanese population was the left ventricular apex.