Echocardiographic findings in an elderly population. Influence of arterial hypertension. The EPICARDIAN study.

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) and left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD) in a group of elderly Spanish individuals. Data were obtained on a subgroup of 371 individuals from the Lista district of Madrid, Spain who were taking part in the EPICARDIAN study. In hypertensive subjects, the prevalence of LVH was 51.8%-61.8%, that of LVDD was 86%, and that of LVSD was 6.2%. In normotensive subjects, the prevalences were 14%-30% for LVH, 86% for LVDD, and 6% for LVSD. The isovolumic relaxation time was 115+/-33 ms in the hypertensive group and 105+/-24 ms in the normotensive group. In this study, the only factor that differentiated between the diagnoses of LVDD due to age and LVDD due to hypertension was a longer isovolumic relaxation time.