electrocardiographic changes in healthy and preeclamptic pregnant women

background: preeclampsia is a condition observed during pregnancy and threatens the life of both mother and fetus. there are studies which suggest that preeclampsia play a major role in the left ventricular mass. the aim of this study is to compare the electrocardiographic changes in normal pregnant and preeclamptic women. methods: the studied groups consisted of 48 mild preeclamptic, 33 severe preeclamptic and 42 normal pregnant women. to measure left ventricular indices such as sokolow and cornell; the obtained ecgs from patients were used. results : the left ventricular mass in preeclamptic group, severely preeclamptic group and control group were 21.62mm, 23.45mm, and 20.85mm respectively. there was no statistically significant difference among groups with regards to sokolow index. the left ventricular mass in preeclamptic group, severely preeclamptic group and control group were 10.52mm, 12.30mm, 9.07mm. there were statistically significant differences among the groups with regards to cornell index. conclusion: it seems that the increasing of left ventricular mass is one of the important effects in preeclampsia during pregnancy whose recognition has been done in previous studies via ecg. the results of this study showed that electrocardiography could be used as an instrument in the diagnosis of left ventricular function in preeclamptic women.