Assessment of longitudinal left ventricular systolic function by different echocardiographic modalities in patients with newly diagnosed mild-to-moderate hypertension

Objective: Standard echocardiographic methods reflect chamber dynamics and do not provide a direct measure of myocardial fiber shortening. Therefore we evaluated longitudinal left ventricular myocardial function by tissue Doppler echocardiography; strain (S), strain rate (SR), tissue Doppler velocity (TDV) in newly diagnosed mild to moderate hypertensive patients. Methods: Our cross-sectional and observational study population consisted of 57 patients and 48 normotensive control subjects. Patients with obesity, diabetes mellitus, regional wall motion abnormality, secondary hypertension and a history or clinical evidence of cardiovascular disease, arrhythmias or conduction abnormalities were excluded from the study. Ejection fraction, endocardial fractional shortening (eFS), meridional end-systolic stress (mESS), stress-adjusted eFS (observed /predicted eFS) were measured by M-mode echocardiography. Relationship between the left ventricular mass index and mESS was assessed by Pearson's linear regression model. Results: Hypertensive patients had significantly decreased longitudinal myocardial function compared to control subjects determined by septal (-1.25 +/- 0.30 vs. -1.02 +/- 0.33, p<0.001) and lateral (-1.20 +/- 0.28 vs. 1.02 +/- 0.41, p<0.01) SR (1/s) measurements. However, there was no significant correlation between the mESS and strain-strain rate measurements in both normal and hypertensive subjects. Conclusions: Early impairment in longitudinal left ventricular systolic function can be expected despite normal endocardial left ventricular function indicated by M-mode echocardiography in patients with newly diagnosed and never treated mild to moderate hypertension. (Anadolu Kardiyol Derg 2010; 10: 247-52)