Left ventricular global wall thickness is easily calculated, detects and characterizes hypertrophy, and has prognostic utility

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) can be used to measure left ventricular end-diastolic volume (LVEDV) and left ventricular mass (LVM). However, there is currently no good way to measure the normality of LVM in relation to a given LVEDV. We hypothesized that a simple measure of left ventricular global wall thickness (GWT) would be accurate, beneficial for detecting and characterizing hypertrophy, and have prognostic significance.METHODS: Subjects underwent CMR at 1.5T, including healthy volunteers (n=99) and patients assessed for heart disease (n=2828).RESULTS: GWT calculated from LVEDV and LVM had excellent agreement with measured mean end-diastolic wall thickness of the entire left ventricle (bias 0.01±0.23mm). GWT was most predictive of death or hospitalization for heart failure in patients with normal findings by CMR (n=326, log-rank 26.8, p<0.001, median [interquartile range] follow-up 5.8 [5.0–6.7] years). GWT indexed to body surface area (GWTi) was most predictive of outcomes in patients with normal LVEDV index (n=1352, log-rank 36.4, p<0.001, follow-up 5.5 [4.1–6.5] years). Patients with concentric remodeling had worse prognosis than the normal patients (p=0.02), and the patients with hypertrophy had worse prognosis than both normal patients (p