Assessment of Heart Function in Patients with Essential Hypertension without Left Ventricular Hypertrophy by Echocardiography.

Objective To assess heart function in patients with essential hypertension without left ventricular hypertrophy by echocardiography.Methods Ejection fraction(EF),fractional shortening(FS) were assessed in control group and hypertensive patients by M-Mode Echocardiography.Mitral inflow velocity in early diastole(E) and late diastole(A),and mitral annular velocity E1 A1 were measured by Doppler Tissue Imaging(DTI) and Pulse Doppler Technic(PDW).The results of two groups were compared.Results In hypertensive patients,E/A and E1/A1 were lower(P0.01),while the isovolumic relaxation time(IVRT) was longer than that in control group(P0.01). But there was no statistic significant difference in left ventricular mass index(LVMI),EF and FS between hypertensive group and control group(P0.05). The deceleration time(DT) of two groups has no significant difference(P0.05).Conclusions Patients with hypertension may have abnormality of diastolic function prior to the development of LVH.DTI is more accurate than conventional Doppler.The combination of two methods can provide more objective basis in assessment of left ventricular diastolic function.