High prevalence of concentric remodeling in elderly individuals with isolated systolic hypertension from a population survey

Echocardiographic determination of left ventricular mass index (LVMI) is shown to be valuable in the assessment of cardiovascular risk. Determination of left ventricular geometry, including concentric remodeling, provides additional prognostic information. In isolated systolic hypertension (ISH), the few echocardiographic studies available show an increased LVMI, but criteria and patient populations differ. No comparison with diastolic hypertension (DH) has been made, nor has left ventricular geometry (with concentric remodeling) been evaluated. We compared both LVMI and left ventricular geometry of newly diagnosed ISH subjects-with normotensive and DH subjects, all previously untreated and from the same population. The echocardiographic LVMI of 97 previously untreated ISH subjects (4x systolic pressure greater than or equal to 160 mm Hg, diastolic pressure