ASSOCIATION OF CARDIOVASCULAR RISK-FACTORS IN HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS WITH LEFT-VENTRICULAR HYPERTROPHY

The cardiovascular morbi-mortality is higher between the patients with essential hypertension and LVH. It is due to effects over heart provoked by the abnormal increment of the myocardial mass. However, the role of others concurrent risk factors must be determined. To analyze this possibility, we studied the distribution of the main cardiovascular risk factors in a population of 50 essential hypertensive patients non treated before. They were shared in two groups: 32 patients with LVH diagnosed by echocardiography (left ventricular mass index > 120 g/m2) and 18 patients without LVH. The comparison between both groups showed that the patients with LVH had higher systolic arterial pressure (p < 0.05), higher mean arterial pressure (p < 0.05), higher alcohol (p < 0.01) and tobacco (p < 0.02) consumption, higher values of triglycerides (p < 0.05) and uric acid (p < 0.01), and higher plasma renin activity (p < 0.05) than those observed in the group without LVH. Plasma cholesterol was also higher (increase of 11%) in patients with LVH; then, in these patients its mean value (245 +/- 12 mg/dl, M +/- SD) was over the top of the normal limit (240 mg/dl), which discriminate the risk of cardiovascular complications for this factor. The following factors: age, sex distribution, diastolic arterial pressure, sedentary life and carbohydrate intolerance, didn't present differences between the groups. These results show that hypertensive patients with LVH, as a group, have others factors of risk, different from ventricular hypertrophy, which favour the high cardiovascular morbi-mortality of LVH group.