'comparing electrocardiography and echocardiography in assessing the left ventricular hypertophy in hypertensive individuals living in yiğilca district of Düzce city'

İntroduction: Hypertension is the major cardiovascular risk factor directly causing coronary artery disease, stroke, renal failure, and peripheral arterial disease. Left ventricular hipertrophy (LVH) as a sign of end organ damage is directly proportional with cardiovascular events. Today, electrocardiography (ECG) and echocardiography (ECHO) are the most useful noninvasive technics in cardiology practice. They are both used as diagnostic tools and for following up the treatment response in various cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study is comparing the ECG and ECHO in assessing the LVH in hypertensive individuals and establishing the variables affecting LVH. Methods: Representetive 400 people (>17 years-old), living in the Yığılca town of Düzce city, each for a family practitioner randomised as age, gender, urban-rural distrubution are invited to the study. İndividuals using any antihypertensive drug or having a systolic blood pressure greater than 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure greater than 90 mmHg are assumed to have hypertension. 855 hypertensive patients are included in the study. Assessments are done in the community health center between may and june in 2010. Medical background check was performed for each patient and clinical, labaratory, ECG, ECHO assesments are gathered to pool data. Findings: ECHO shows that 551 (78.5%) patients have LVH which is obviously greater in number that ECG has detected. The number of patients having LVH detected by the modified Sokolow - Lyon index is 148 (21.1%) and is greater than that of all other ECG criteria for LVH has shown. The LVH detected by RAVL is 30 (4.3%) which is the least in number among other methods. According to echocardiographic findings there is a significant difference between body mass index (BMI) and left ventricular end diastolic diameter comparing the patients having LVH or not. Age, BMI, smoking, hyperlipidemia, diastolic dysfunction are found to be outcome variables but age and BMI are found to be indipendent variables in patients having LVH detected by ECHO. Results: The number of patient having LVH detected by ECHO is higher than ECG did. Thus, LVH should be assessed by ECHO. Age and BMI are the two indipendent variables in patients having LVH detected by ECHO.