Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Mar 26, 2017; 9(3): 248-254
Published online Mar 26, 2017. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v9.i3.248
Validity of electrocardiographic criteria for increased left ventricular mass in young patients in the general population
Eduard Sklyar, Paul Ginelli, Aaron Barton, Richard Peralta, Jonathan N Bella
Eduard Sklyar, Paul Ginelli, Aaron Barton, Richard Peralta, Jonathan N Bella, Department of Medicine, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, Bronx, NY 10457, United States
Author contributions: Sklyar E designed and supervised the study; Ginelli P collected and analyzed the data and drafted the manuscript; Barton A assisted with data collection; Peralta R provided statistical analysis; Bella JN revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; all authors have read and approved the final version to be published.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: Waiver of informed consent was obtained from Institutional Review Board as trial demonstrated no risk to study subjects.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors have received fees for serving as a speaker, or research funding or own stocks, or patent.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Eduard Sklyar, MD, Department of Medicine, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, 12th Floor, Bronx, NY 10457, United States. esklyar@bronxleb.org
Telephone: +1-718-5185222 Fax: +1-718-5185585
Received: July 27, 2016
Peer-review started: July 29, 2016
First decision: September 8, 2016
Revised: October 7, 2016
Accepted: December 27, 2016
Article in press: December 28, 2016
Published online: March 26, 2017
Abstract
AIM

To investigate validity of electrocardiographic (ECG) criteria for left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in young adults.

METHODS

Retrospectively, echocardiograms showing LVH and concomitant electrocardiograms were collected in patients 18 to 39 years old. A control group of patients without LVH was collected. Using echocardiogram as the gold standard, electrocardiograms were analyzed using common voltage criteria.

RESULTS

Study included 100 subjects (52% male, mean age = 28 ± 6.8 years, 96% Hispanic or African-American) with 50% LVH prevalence. Sensitivity and specificity for Sokolow-Lyon criteria were 24% (95%CI: 13.5%-38.4%) and 88% (95%CI: 74.9%-95%). For Cornell criteria, sensitivity was 32% (95%CI: 19.9%-46.8%) and specificity 98% (95%CI: 87.9%-99.8%). For R in aVL criteria, sensitivity was 12% (95%CI: 4.9%-25%) and specificity 100% (95%CI: 91.1%-100%).

CONCLUSION

In young adults common ECG voltage criteria have low sensitivities and high specificities similar to other age groups. Low sensitivities preclude these ECG criteria from serving as effective screening tests.

Keywords: Electrocardiographic, Left ventricular hypertrophy criteria, Young adults

Core tip: The electrocardiographic (ECG) has been used for years to diagnose left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). However, to the best of our knowledge, there were no prior studies validating most common ECG criteria for LVH in young adults. The authors believe that this is important group of population, as athletes screening for pre participation to professional sport falls into this category. ECG is one of the proposed screening tools and we think that it should be validated for diagnosis of LVH. This study showed that common ECG criteria for LVH can be used in young adults with similar sensitivity and specificity to other age groups.