Abstract
Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is an independent risk factor for cardiac death. This study evaluates the prevalence and patterns of LVH in patients with predialysis chronic renal failure (CRF) and analyses the relationship between LVH and various predisposing factors. Sixty-two CRF patients were recruited from the renal clinic with serum creatinine over 2 mg/dl. Using echocardiography, we calculated the left ventricular mass index (LVMI) and relative wall thickness (RWT), and classified the patients into four groups (Group 1: normal, Group 2: concentric remodelling, Group 3: concentric hypertrophy, Group 4: eccentric hypertrophy). Prevalence and patterns of LVH in patients with CRF were as follows; 6.5% in Groups 1 and 2, 56.5% in Group 3 and 30.5% in Group 4. LVMI increases with progressive renal function decline. There were linear correlations between LVMI and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), serum creatinine (Scr) and intact parathyroid hormone (PTH) in patients with predialysis CRF and also inverse linear correlations between LVMI and creatinine clearance (Ccr) and hemoglobin. In conclusion, we demonstrate the high prevalence of LVH (87%) in patients with predialysis CRF and concentric hypertrophy (56.5%) was the main pattern of LVH. Several factors such as anemia, systolic and diastolic BP, renal function and PTH influence LVMI.