Relationship between giant negative T-wave and severity of apical hypertrophy in patients with apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
OBJECTIVE
This study was aimed at evaluating the usefulness of giant negative T-wave (GNT) as an index of apical hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (ACM) severity and as a better echocardiographic index to represent apical hypertrophy.


METHODS
Seventy-five patients who were recently diagnosed with ACM by echocardiography were enrolled in this study. ACM patients were divided into two groups: group 1 (ACM with GNT) and group 2 (ACM without GNT). To evaluate ACM severity, apical wall thickness (A-WT) and apical cross-sectional muscle area (A-CSMA) were measured by echocardiography.


RESULTS
Twenty-seven patients (36%) had GNT. The maximal A-WT of groups 1 and 2 was 19.7 ± 2.4 and 18.6 ± 2.0 mm, P = 0.027, respectively. In addition, the maximal A-CSMA differed significantly between groups 1 and 2 (14.2 ± 1.8 vs. 11.8 ± 1.9 cm(2) , P < 0.001). In the correlation analysis, T(max) showed a stronger correlation with A-CSMA than with A-WT (r = 0.599 vs. r = 0.291).


CONCLUSIONS
These results indicate that the presence of GNT in ACM patients may represent more severe apical hypertrophy. Furthermore, A-CSMA may be a more reliable ACM severity index than A-WT.
Park
Sun-Yi
SY
Department of Cardiology, Dong-A University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
Park
Tae-Ho
TH
Kim
Jung-Hwan
JH
Baek
Hee-Kyung
HK
Seo
Jeong-Min
JM
Kim
Woo-Jae
WJ
Cha
Kwang-Soo
KS
Kim
Moo-Hyun
MH
Kim
Young-Dae
YD
D000368:Aged; D002312:Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D004562:Electrocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013223:Statistics as Topic