Left ventricular mass in borderline hypertension, assessed by echocardiography. Relationships with resting and stress blood pressure.

The relationship between clinical measurement of blood pressure (BP) and left ventricular hypertrophy in arterial hypertension appears to be weak in most studies. On the contrary, stronger correlations with target organ damage in general, and left ventricular hypertrophy in particular, have been reported for blood pressure measurements obtained by ambulatory monitoring; this finding may indicate a possible role for blood pressure response to naturally occurring stresses in determining left ventricular hypertrophy. Aim of this study was to investigate, in 18 patients with borderline arterial hypertension, the relationships between echocardiographically assessed left ventricular mass and, respectively, casual BP and BP responses to some standardized stress tests. Only three patients had a diastolic wall thickness of the interventricular septum and of the posterior wall greater than or equal to 1.2 cm and none had a pathologically increased left ventricular mass index. The following statistically significant correlations were found: casual diastolic BP vs. left ventricular mass index (r = 0.53, p less than 0.02), systolic BP response to bicycle exercise test vs. left ventricular mass index (r = 0.55, p less than 0.05). Multiple regression analysis showed that almost fifty percent of the variability of left ventricular mass index could be predicted by these two BP measurements. These findings suggest that besides the chronically increased afterload, also the transient hypertensive responses to naturally occurring physical stresses may have a role in determining the extent of cardiac structural changes in borderline hypertensive patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)