Electrocardiography (ECG) is the most widely used method for diagnosing left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in hypertensive patients. We assessed the value of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) determination compared with ECG for detecting LVH in 336 consecutive hypertensive patients with preserved systolic function. We found a significant correlation between NT-proBNP levels a...

Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a common adaptive response of the heart to the increased workload associated with hypertension.1 Essential hypertension is characterized by an increase in total peripheral resistance.2 Mechanical modeling of the cardiovascular system suggests that a necessary consequence of increased downstream resistance to flow is increased pressure to maintain end organ ...

INTRODUCTION Cardiac hypertrophy is an independent risk factor for torsades de pointes (TdP), a polymorphic ventricular tachycardia that is often drug-induced, that may evolve into ventricular fibrillation and sudden death. Therefore this study was designed to determine if right (RVH), left (LVH), or biventricular (BVH) hypertrophy increases susceptibility to drug-induced TdP. METHODS Rabbits...

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is widespread in developing countries. Hypertension is a major contributor of CVD. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a risk marker in hypertensive populations. Identification of LVH and treatment of high-risk patients can result in more effective use of the limited resources. LVH is diagnosed by echocardiography, often unavailable in developing countries. In Gam...

The development of left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy (LVH) can be affected by diet manipulation. Concentric LVH resulting from pressure overload can be worsened by feeding rats with a high-fructose diet. Eccentric LVH is a different type of hypertrophy and is associated with volume overload (VO) diseases. The impact of an abnormal diet on the development of eccentric LVH and on ventricular func...

The recovery of systolic and diastolic function during unstable angina may be modified by the repetition of brief episodes of ischemia and by the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). We studied the effects of six consecutive 5-minute cycles of no-flow ischemia and reperfusion followed by 25 minutes of recovery in isovolumic red blood cell-perfused hearts from aortic-banded rats with ...

About 77.9 million (1 in 4) American adults have high blood pressure. High blood pressure is the primary cause of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), which represents a strong predictor of future heart failure and cardiovascular mortality. Previous studies have shown an altered metabolic profile in hypertensive patients with LVH. The goal of this study was to identify blood metabolomic LVH biom...

Allopurinol ameliorates endothelial dysfunction and arterial stiffness among patients without chronic kidney disease (CKD), but it is unknown if it has similar effects among patients with CKD. Furthermore, because arterial stiffness increases left ventricular afterload, any allopurinol-induced improvement in arterial compliance might also regress left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). We conducted...

BACKGROUND The myocardial velocity gradient (MVG) is a recent index of regional myocardial function derived from endocardial and epicardial velocities obtained by tissue Doppler imaging (TDI). This index might be useful for discriminating between physiological and pathological left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and for documenting the early transition from compensated LVH to heart failure. We s...

BACKGROUND Serum cystatin C levels can be used to predict morbidity and mortality in patients with cardiovascular disease. However, the clinical relevance of serum cystatin C levels in patients with hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) has rarely been investigated. We designed the present study to investigate whether serum cystatin C levels are associated with cardiac structural and ...