title: Low incidence of cardiac hypertrophy in essential hypertensives with no retinal changes.
abstract: 120 subjects, 90 hypertensives and 30 age-matched controls, were evaluated by fundoscopy and echocardiography to assess the degree of target organ involvement. The hypertensive patients were divided into 3 groups (mild, moderate, severe hypertension) according to their diastolic blood pressure levels. No significant difference was demonstrated in left ventricular mass among the 3 groups. Moreover, no relationship was demonstrated between the degree of hypertension and the severity of fundoscopic changes. Our findings indicate that patients with no retinal changes show a low probability of left ventricular hypertrophy and that patients with left ventricular hypertrophy show a high probability of retinal involvement. Our data indicate that fundoscopy is more sensitive than echocardiography in the recognition of the hypertensive disease.
authors.affiliation: Istituto di Clinica Medica IV, Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: de Leonardis
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Becucci
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: De Scalzi
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cinelli
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D006332:Cardiomegaly / Q000150:complications* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000150:complications*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009887:Ophthalmoscopy; D012164:Retinal Diseases / Q000209:etiology*