Correlations of electrocardiography and echocardiography in assessment of left ventricular wall thickness in hypertensive patients.

Posterior wall thickness (PW) and interventricular septal thickness (IVS), left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDD), left ventricular end-systolic diameter (LVESD), ejection fraction (EF) and left ventricular mass (LV mass) were determined by the echocardiogram. These were compared with the sum of the S wave in lead V1 plus the R wave in lead V6(SV1 + RV6) determined by electrocardiogram (ECG) in 21 hypertensive patients. A significant increase in PW (p less than 0,05), IVS (p less than 0.05) and LV mass (p less than 0.01) was found in all the 21 patients. PW was highly correlated with SV1 + RV6(r = 0,76; p less than 0.01) in 12 patients. LV mass was correlated with LVEDD (r = 0,60; p less than 0.05) and LVESD (r = = 0.66; p less than 0.05) in the same patients mentioned before. We conclude that LV mass increases early in hypertensive patients and can be better assessed by echocardiography than ECG. The PW has a greater influence on the SV1 + RV6 sum than the echocardiographically assessed IVS.