Correlation between Echocardiographic Left Ventricular Hypertrophy and various Electrocardiographic Criteria of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy among Black Hypertensives.

Background Systemic hypertension remains an important risk factor for cardiovascular diseases and a major global public health problem. Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a recognized complication of systemic hypertension and strongly predicts cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. In Nigeria, few studies have evaluated the correlation of ECG criteria in the diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy among hypertensives and almost all the previous studies on ECG LVH used only one or two criteria. This study sets out to determine the correlations between various ECG criteria of LVH and echocardiographic LVH among patients with hypertension using six ECG LVH criteria. Methods One hundred and seventy-eight hypertensives and eighty- nine age and sex matched controls were recruited consecutively into the study. All participants including hypertensives and control subjects had echocardiography whereas only hypertensive subjects had both echocardiography and ECG. ECG LVH was determined using Sokolow-Lyon, Cornell voltage, Goldberger, Massoleini, Romhilt-Estes and Cornell duration product ECG criteria. Results Sokolow-Lyon and Cornell voltage criteria had significant positive correlation with echocardiographic LVH (p=0.001 and 0.003, respectively). Although Goldberger and Massoleini criteria had positive correlation coefficients, these were not statistically significant. Conclusion There are significant correlations between echocardiographic LVH and ECG LVH determined by Cornell voltage and Sokolow-Lyon criteria.