Abstract
The authors estimated the risk of cardiovascular mortality associated with echocardiographic (ECHO) left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and subtypes of this phenotype in patients with and without electrocardiographic (ECG) LVH. A total of 1691 representatives of the general population were included in the analysis. During a follow-up of 211 months, 89 cardiovascular deaths were recorded. Compared with individuals with neither ECHO LVH nor ECG LVH, fully adjusted risk of cardiovascular mortality increased (hazard ratio [HR], 3.36; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.51-7.47; P=.003) in patients with both ECHO-LVH and ECG-LVH, whereas the risk entailed by ECHO-LVH alone was of borderline statistical significance (P=.04). Combined concentric nondilated LVH and ECG-LVH, but not concentric nondilated LVH alone, predicted cardiovascular death (HR, 3.79; 95% CI, 1.25-11.38; P=.01). Similar findings were observed for eccentric nondilated LVH (HR, 3.37; 95% CI, 1.05-10.78; P=.04.). The present analysis underlines the value of combining ECG and ECHO in the assessment of cardiovascular prognosis related to abnormal left ventricular geometric patterns.