Pathophysiologic assessment of hypertensive heart disease with echocardiography.

Assessment of the pathophysiologic changes associated with systemic hypertension has been limited by difficulty in justifying invasive studies of the left ventricle. Echocardiography, because it is notinvasive, offers an attractive method of assessing cardiac dimensions and function in hypertensive heart disease. Fourteen age-matched normotensive subjects and 31 patients with hypertension (but without clinical evidence of coronary artery disease) were studied before receiving any antihypertensive therapy. The patients with hypertension were classified into three groups on the basis of previously established electrocardiographic and chest X-ray criteria: group I, normal electrocardiogram and chest roentgenogram (13 patients); group II, left atrial abnormality by electrocardiogram and a normal chest roentgenogram (8 patients); and group III, left ventricular hypertrophy by electrocardiogram or chest roentgenogram, or both (10 patients). Mean arterial pressure increased significantly from group I to group II and from group II to group III (P is less than 0.01), and this increase was associated with a similar progressive increase in left ventricular mass assessed with echocardiogram (P is less than 0.01). A significant increase was also found in both posterior wall and septal thickness in groups II (P is less than 0.05) and III (P is less than 0.01). In association with this increased mass a significant decrease in ejection fraction and fractional fiber shortening was demonstrated in groups II (P is less than 0.05) and III (P is less than 0.01) although cardiac index was reduced only in group III (P is less than 0.05). Thus, increased ventricular mass can be identified with echocardiography at an early stage of hypertensive heart disease when only left atrial abnormality is identifiable with electrocardiographic criteria and decreased left ventricular performance occurs with increasing arterial pressure and left ventricular hypertrophy.