Prevalence of left ventricular hypertrophy in Finnish primary health care hypertensive patients

BACKGROUND: Hypertensive patients who present left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) are at considerable risk of developing cardiovascular complications. Echocardiography, being the best method for assessing of LVH, is too expensive for routine daily practice particularly in primary health care. Therefore, electrocardiogram (ECG) still remains the most feasible method to assess LVH in these settings. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of ECG-LVH in Finnish hypertensive primary health care patients and evaluate the quality of their blood pressure control. METHODS: A total of 255 general practitioners in 26 primary health care centres identified all of their hypertensive patients visiting during a 1-week period. A health examination was carried out on these patients by health nurses and laboratory tests, including ECG, were taken. The ECG's were analysed by using the Minnesota Code. Altogether, 1746 hypertensive patients were examined. RESULTS: The prevalence of ECG-LVH when using Sokolow-Lyon criterion was 9.8% for males and 5.7% for females. The corresponding figures, when using the sex-specific Cornell product, were 14.9% for males and 18.8% for females. Only 17% of LVH patients had their blood pressure under good control (BP <140/90 mm Hg) as compared to 25% of non-LVH patients (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of ECG-LVH in Finnish hypertensive primary health care patients is high. Despite this warning signal, the treatment situation for LVH patients was even worse than that of other hypertensives.