Sklyar E, Ginelli P, Barton A, Peralta R, Bella JN. Validity of electrocardiographic criteria for increased left ventricular mass in young patients in the general population. World J Cardiol 2017; 9(3): 248-254 [PMID: 28400921 DOI: 10.4330/wjc.v9.i3.248]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Eduard Sklyar, MD, Department of Medicine, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, 12th Floor, Bronx, NY 10457, United States. esklyar@bronxleb.org
Research Domain of This Article
Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
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 Processing time: 242 Days and 16.7 Hours
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.
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.
