title: Left Ventricular Mass Indexing in Infants, Children, and Adolescents: A Simplified Approach for the Identification of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in Clinical Practice.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine a simplified method to identify presence of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in pediatric populations because the relationship between heart growth and body growth in children has made indexing difficult for younger ages.
  
  
  METHODS
  Healthy children (n = 400; 52% boys, 0-18 years of age) from 2 different European hospitals were studied to derive a simplified formula. Left ventricular mass (LVM) was calculated according to the Devereux formula. The derived approach to index LVM was tested on a validation cohort of 130 healthy children from a different hospital center.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a strong nonlinear correlation between height and LVM. LVM was best related to height to a power of 2.16 with a correction factor of 0.09. Analysis of residuals for LVM/[(height(2.16)) + 0.09] showed an homoscedastic distribution in both sexes throughout the entire height range. A partition value of 45 g/m(2.16) was defined as the upper normal limit for LVM index. As opposed to formula suggested by current guidelines (ie, LVM/height(2.7)) when applying the proposed approach in the validation cohort of 130 healthy participants, no false positives for LVH were found (0% vs 8%; P < .01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our data support the possibility to have a single partition (ie, 45 g/m(2.16)) value across the whole pediatric age range to identify LVH, without the time-consuming need of computing specific percentiles for height and sex.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: marcello.chinali@opbg.net.
authors.forename: Marcello
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chinali
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology and Urology, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Emma
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, Rome, Italy; Pediatric Cardiology Outreach Clinic, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Center Basilicata, San Carlo Hospital, Potenza, Italy.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Esposito
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Gabriele
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rinelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Franceschini
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Anke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Doyon
authors.affiliation: Congenital and Pediatric Cardiology Unit, Hôpital Necker, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Raimondi
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pongiglione
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Franz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephrology and Urology, Bambino Gesù Pediatric Hospital, Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Maria Chiara
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Matteucci
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001827:Body Height; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D017379:Hypertrophy, Left Ventricular / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D012016:Reference Values