Prevalence of echocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy among hypertensives in a tertiary health institution in Nigeria

OBJECTIVE: Systemic hypertension remains an important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and a major global public health problem. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a recognized complication of hypertension and strongly predicts cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. In Nigeria, few studies evaluated the role of echocardiography in the diagnosis of LVHs among hypertensives. This study sets out to determine the prevalence of LVH among hypertensives as determined by echocardiography.MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred and seventy-eight hypertensives and eighty-nine age and sex-matched controls were recruited consecutively into the study. They all had echocardiography done to determine which among had LVH. The partition value for LVH for hypertensives was determined using the 97th percentile of the left ventricular mass for controls as a cutoff point. RESULTS:Echocardiographic determined the prevalence of LVH among hypertensives was 32.4%.CONCLUSION:The echocardiographic prevalence of LVH was 32.4% in the study population. This is a significant proportion among the study population considering the clinical impact of LVH among patients with hypertension.

Feasibility and effect of community health worker support and home monitoring for blood pressure control in Nigeria: a randomised pilot trial

In a three-arm, randomised, controlled trial among 60 Nigerian adults with hypertension, community health worker support and home blood pressure monitoring led to greater reductions in systolic blood pressure at four weeks compared to the usual care

Characterisation of left ventricular function by tissue Doppler imaging technique in newly diagnosed, untreated hypertensive subjects

BACKGROUND:Hypertension results in structural and functional changes in the heart. Early detection of abnormalities of cardiac structure and function is important in the assessment and treatment of hypertensive subjects. The aim of this study was to evaluate the utility of the tissue Doppler echocardiographic technique in characterising diastolic and systolic functions in untreated native black African hypertensive subjects.MATERIALS AND METHODS:Forty consecutive, newly diagnosed, untreated hypertensives with adequate conventional echocardiographic (2-D, M-mode, transmitral and pulmonary Doppler flow velocities) and tissue Doppler echocardiographic images were recruited into the study. The control subjects were apparently normal individuals. Each arm of the study consisted of 21 male and 19 female subjects.RESULTS:The two groups were comparable by age (48.6 +/- 11.35 years in the hypertensives vs 48.1 +/- 11.33 years in the controls; p = 0.844) and gender distribution (M/F: 21/19 in both groups). Other baseline characteristics, except for blood pressure parameters, which were predictably higher in the hypertensive subjects, were comparable between the two groups. The hypertensive subjects had a lower systolic myocardial velocity (Sm) and early diastolic myocardial velocity (Em) in comparison with the controls (p = 0.033 and p = 0.018, respectively). The late diastolic myocardial velocity (Am) was comparable in the two groups (p = 0.430). CONCLUSIONS:Tissue Doppler echocardiography demonstrates diastolic dysfunction relatively early in native African hypertensives and may be useful for detecting subtle deterioration in systolic function