Electrocardiograms in hypertensive subjects from a population random sample: basic characteristics and correlations with some biological variables.

During the initial phase of the WHO "Community Control Programme of Hypertension" in Italy, 1,190 hypertensives (of both sexes, aged 20-64) were identified through the screnning of 5,856 people randomly selected from the whole population of the community of Camposampiero (Padova), and had a standard ECG tracing recorded. ECGs were all read according to the 2nd version of the Minnesota code (MC), by only one coder. First of all, the prevalence of the various items of MC in the two sexes was calculated. Absolutely normal ECGs (item 1-0) were found in 41.1% of the examined subjects; another 23.3% had only a shift of the transition zone to the right or to the left (items 9-4). Among pathological codes, the most frequent were those of class 3 relating to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) (i.e. 3:1 or 3:3) and those of classes 4, 5 and 7 relating to myocardial ischaemia (ISC) (i.e. 4:1-3 or 5:1-3 or 7-1). The overall frequencies of LVH and, respectively, of ISC (calculated by suitably grouping the above described items) were as follows. LVH: 21.3% in males (M), 14.6% in females (F); ISC: 5.7% in M, 18.1% in F. A significant (p less than 0.005) positive correlation with age was found both for LVH and ISC codes in F, only for ISC codes in M. A significant negative correlation between LVH codes and body mass index (BMI) was instead evident only in males.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)