Echocardiographic Assessment of Left Ventricular Function in Hypertensive Patients
Summary
Arterial hypertension imposes a chronic pressure overload on the left ventricle, driving concentric hypertrophy and eventually impairing both diastolic filling and systolic performance. Transthoracic echocardiography remains the cornerstone of non-invasive evaluation, allowing quantification of chamber dimensions, wall thickness and conventional indices such as left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Doppler techniques assess transmitral inflow velocities and tissue Doppler annular motion to detect early diastolic dysfunction. In recent years, speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE) has enabled direct measurement of myocardial deformation, notably global longitudinal strain (GLS), which uncovers subclinical systolic impairment before changes in LVEF become apparent. Layer-specific and three-dimensional strain analyses further characterise transmural mechanics and volumetric geometry. Together, these modalities enhance risk stratification, guide antihypertensive therapy and monitor regression of hypertensive heart disease, with growing evidence for prognostic value in predicting adverse cardiovascular events.
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Echocardiographic Assessment of Left Ventricular Function in Hypertensive Patients publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular function in hypertensive patients across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF): The percentage of blood ejected from the left ventricle with each heartbeat, a conventional measure of systolic function.
Global longitudinal strain (GLS): A dimensionless index of myocardial deformation measured by speckle-tracking, representing the average percentage change in length of the myocardium along its long axis.
Speckle-tracking echocardiography (STE): An imaging technique that tracks natural acoustic markers (“speckles”) in the myocardial tissue to quantify deformation in multiple dimensions.
References
- Efficacy of echocardiography for differential diagnosis of left ventricular hypertrophy: special focus on speckle-tracking longitudinal strain. Journal of Echocardiography (2021).
- Left Ventricular Diastolic Function in Hypertension: Methodological Considerations and Clinical Implications. Journal of Clinical Medicine Research (2014).
- Speckle‐Tracking and Tissue‐Doppler Stress Echocardiography in Arterial Hypertension: A Sensitive Tool for Detection of Subclinical LV Impairment. BioMed Research International (2014).
- Differences in left ventricular functional adaptation to arterial stiffness and neurohormonal activation in patients with hypertension: a study with two-dimensional layer-specific speckle tracking echocardiography. Clinical Hypertension (2017).
- Role of strain echocardiography in patients with hypertension. Clinical Hypertension (2022).
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