Journal de l'hypertension : accès libre

Mechanical Deformation in Patients with Systemic Arterial Hypertension

Abstract

Leonel Avendaño-Pérez, María Elena Soto, Nydia Ávila-Vanzzini, Erick Alexanderson-Rosas and Nilda Espinola-Zavaleta

Background: Systemic arterial hypertension represents the mayor risk factor for several cardiovascular diseases. In a large number of patients it affects the left ventricle by a compensating hypertrophy and posteriorly when this mechanism is insufficient, it leads to heart failure and therefore the patient requires regular echocardiographic monitoring. Subclinical dysfunction of the left ventricle exists even in asymptomatic hypertensive patients with preserved left ventricular ejection fraction.
Objectives: The main aim of our study was focused in the assessment of left ventricular mechanical deformation in 20 patients with systemic arterial hypertension and 21 healthy controls.
Results: A total of 41 subjects were studied, 22 women and 19 men. The hypertensive group consisted of 20 patients and the healthy control group of 21 subjects. The echocardiographic findings that had significative differences between hypertensive patients and healthy controls were left ventricle mass index, E/A ratio, E/e´ ratio and systolic pulmonary arterial pressure. In patients with hypertension, the radial deformation had a significative reduction, p=0.002, but the longitudinal deformation was statistically decreased (p=0.008), only in the subgroup of hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy.
Conclusion: The patients with systemic hypertension require a close follow-up in order to identify the most accurate echocardiographic parameter for diagnosis of subclinical dysfunction. In our study, the global radial deformation was significatively diminished in the hypertensive patients and the global longitudinal deformation was decreased only in the subgroup of hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy.