Left ventricular relaxation time index and left atrial emptying index as early echocardiographic indicators in predicting hypertensive heart disease.

To study the earliest changes in left ventricular structure and function appearing in response to hypertensive heart disease the study was started with an initial group of subjects detected for the first time in their lives with elevated levels of systemic blood pressures. A careful follow up of these subjects during the next year allowed the division of these subjects into a group of healthy not hypertensive subjects and a group of subjects with mild essential systemic hypertension detected in an early phase. The next six years of repeated controls (arterial blood pressure measurement, clinical examination, routine chest X-ray pictures, standard 12 leads ECG and M-mode echocardiography) allowed a further division of the hypertensive subjects into two groups of patients: one correctly treated and the other treated incorrectly or not at all. It was found that left ventricular diastolic functions expressed by left ventricular relaxation time index (LVRTI) and left atrial emptying index (LAEI) are the earliest indicators of hypertensive heart disease due to mild essential systemic hypertension.