Correlation between the chest radiography and the echocardiogram to evaluate cardiomegaly in patients with systemic arterial hypertension

Gustavo Díaz Arrieta; María Elsa Mendoza Hernández; Jorge Hernández Cabrera; Héctor Manuel Robles Parra; Raúl Arturo Espinosa Vázquez; Erika Pacheco Aranda; Miguel Rivas Duro; Javier Guillermo Domínguez Herrera; Luis David Sánchez Velázquez; Marco Antonio Ramírez Torres; Juana Sánchez Maravillas; Silvia Alejandra Ortega Alvarado

2006, Number 2

Arch Cardiol Mex 2006; 76 (2)

Correlation between the chest radiography and the echocardiogram to evaluate cardiomegaly in patients with systemic arterial hypertension

Díaz AG, Mendoza HME, Hernández CJ, Robles PHM, Espinosa VRA, Pacheco AE, Rivas DM, Domínguez HJG, Sánchez VLD, Ramírez TMA, Sánchez MJ, Ortega ASA

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Language: Spanish
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ABSTRACT

The chest radiography is used routinely by the clinician as a tool in the scan of patients with systemic arterial hypertension (SAH) to evaluate the dimensions of the heart. However the highest reported sensitivity for the evaluation of heart growth with this method is 77.3% in contrast to the transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) that reaches between 90 to 100%. The aim of this study was assess in our population of patients with SAH, the correlation between chest radiography and the TTE in regard to cardiomegaly. Patients and methods: Seventy two patients with SAH and radiological cardiomegaly, graded by measuring the cardiothoracic ratio (CTR), were evaluated by transthoracic echocardiography. The Pearson’s and Spearman’s correlation coefficients between both methods were assessed. Significance level was set at ‹ 0.05. Results: Forty one (56.9%) patients were women and 31 (43.1%) were men. The age was 62.4 ± 10 years (43-83 years). Left ventricular concentric hypertrophy (LVCH) was found in 56 (77.8%) patients. In 13 (18%) patients the left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVEDD) was higher than the normal value. The correlation coefficient between the diastolic ventricular septal thickness (DST) and CTR was 0.285 (p ‹ 0.05) and between the LVEDD and radiological cardiomegaly was 0.203 (p = NS). Conclusions: In patients with SAH, the radiological evidence of cardiomegaly keeps a correlation with ventricular hypertrophy, but not with ventricular dilation.

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