Echocardiographic Assessment of Cardiac Anatomy and Function in Hypertensive Patients

Cardiovascular complications are major sources of morbidity and mortality in hypertensive patients. To assess the prevalence of anatomical and functional abnormalities of the heart in such patients, we studied total 67 sujects with systemic hypertension and hypertensive cardiovascular disease by echocardiography. Accordingly normal values of echocardiography from 27 control subjects, we found each significant change(p<0.05). of the septal thickness, left ventricular mass, mitral valve E-F slope and aortic dimension on the both groups, but functional measurements did only show significant change on the hypertensive cardiovascular group in contrast to hypertensive subjects group. The prevalence of the echocardiographic abnormalities on the simple hypertensive subjects group who have no abnormal 12-lead E.C.G. or Chest X-rays are orderly 14 subjects(64%) on the aortic root dimension, 9 subjects (41%) on the left ventricular posterior free-wall thickness and 7 subjects(32%) on the septal thickness. These findings demonstrated a high prevalence of cardiac abnormalities in a population of asymptomatic hypertensive subjects. And these abnormalities can be detected well by echocardiography before they were otherwise apparent.

Echocardiographic Assessment of Cardiac Anatomy and Function in Atherosclerotic Heart Disease

Atherosclerotic heart disease is a major source of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in adult populations. To assess the prevalence of anatomical and functional abnormalities of the heart in such patients, we studied total 50 subjects with atherosclerotic heart disease by echocardiography and compared with 27 control subjects. We found significant change(p<0.05) of aortic root dimension, left ventricular mass, mitral valve E-F slope, E-point septal separation, and functional measurements show significant change in ejection fraction and fractional shortening of left ventricle. Characteristically, abnormal septal movement reveals in 70% of patients including paradoxical, flat & diminished, hyperactive motion, and among them paradoxical movement is the most frequent. Also left ventricular posterior wall movement is abnormal in 30% of the patient group. The prevalence of echocardiographic abnormalities is 80 percentile of total, which include 30 percentile subjects with only echocardiographic abnormalities without abnormality in 12-lead ECG, chest X-ray and laboratory findings. And these abnormalities can be detected well by echocardiography before they were otherwise apparent.