Relationship between coronary artery size and ventricular hypertrophy.

The relationship between coronary blood flow and ventricular hypertrophy has been studied in animal models. But, this relationship in the human body is scarcely evaluated. In this study we measured coronary arterial sizes by coronary arteriograms and correlated them with ventricular hypertrophy. Patients who underwent cardiac catheterization and coronary arteriography and showed no significant coronary arterial lesions were included in this study. There were 131 patients, 75 men and 56 women, with a mean age of 53 +/- 10 years (S.D.). After evaluation with electrocardiograms, echocardiograms and left ventriculograms these patients were divided into 4 groups: (1) the non-hypertrophy (NVH) group, 50 cases; (2) the left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) group, 38 cases; (3) the right ventricular hypertrophy (RVH) group, 23 cases; and (4) the biventricular hypertrophy (BVH) group, 20 cases. The proximal portion of the 3 major coronary arteries and the left main stem were measured from coronary arteriograms with the catheter tip as a size reference. The results showed that the left main stem was larger than the 3 major coronary arteries in the NVH, LVH and BVH groups. But in the RVH group, the left main stem was not significantly larger than the right coronary artery. In all 4 groups the left circumflex coronary artery was the smallest while the left anterior descending coronary artery and the right coronary artery were similar in size. Patients with LVH showed dilatation of all 3 left coronary measurements (left main stem, left anterior descending coronary artery and left circumflex coronary artery) as compared with the NVH patients and the RVH patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)