[Hypertrophy of the left ventricle--etiopathogenesis, clinical consequences and prognosis].

The left ventricular hypertrophy is a risk marker of the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in hypertensive patients--it contributes to sudden death, myocardial infarction, myocardial ischemia, heart failure, arrhythmias, left ventricular diastolic dysfunction, stroke and renal failure. The mechanisms by which the heart hypertrophy increases the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, however, is not completely clear yet. Pressure overload (resulting in the concentric hypertrophy) and volume overload (resulting in the eccentric hypertrophy) of the left ventricle play a significant role in the development of the hypertrophy of the left ventricle. Other risk factors, stimulating left ventricular hypertrophy, include growth factors, genetic predisposition, age, obesity, hyperinsulinemia and anemia. The hypertrophy of left ventricle most often occurs with hypertension, cardiomyopathy and aortic stenosis. Several clinical studies evaluated functional consequences of the reduction of the ventricular hypertrophy and found out that the function of the left ventricle to be improved in hypertensive patients who had undergone an effective and long-term antihypertensive treatment. However, these studies did not differentiate whether for the improvement in the function of left ventricle was the matter of the reduction of the left ventricular mass or whether it was because of the decrease of the arterial pressure during the period of anti-hypertensive treatment. On the basis of the literature studied we can emphasize that the reduction of myocardial hypertrophy resulting from a specific antihypertensive treatment appears to be more favourable than harmful for the heart's pump performance.