The spectrum of left ventricular hypertrophy in a general population sample: the Framingham Study.

To assess the prevalence, characteristics, and correlates of echocardiographically determined left ventricular hypertrophy (echo LVH) in a free-living population, 510 men and 855 women from the original Framingham cohort (age 59 to 90 years) were studied by M-mode echocardiography. Offspring and offspring spouses (1718 men and 1892 women; age 17 to 75 years) were similarly studied. The severity of echo LVH, as reflected by left ventricular mass indexed to body surface area, ranged from 101 g/m2 (women) and 132 g/m2 (men) to more than 400 g/m2. The prevalence of electrocardiographically assessed LVH increased proportionately with increased echocardiographic left ventricular mass. Women with echocardiographic left ventricular mass indexes exceeding 200 g/m2 were three to four times more likely to have electrocardiographic LVH than men with similar elevations of echocardiographic left ventricular mass index. The prevalence of echo LVH ranged from 6.6% in the younger (offspring study) women to 33% in the older (original cohort) women (8.6% and 23.7%, respectively, for men) and included a spectrum of forms--eccentric-dilated, eccentric-nondilated, concentric, and disproportionate septal thickness--which varied in prevalence in the various age-sex groups. Each of these forms of echo LVH was associated with higher systolic blood pressures at the time of echocardiographic examination and over the previous 30 years when compared with blood pressures of Framingham subjects without echo LVH.