Left ventricular hypertrophy, abnormal ventricular geometry and relative wall thickness are associated with increased risk of stroke in hypertensive patients among the Han Chinese.

Our study aimed to explore whether left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), abnormal LV geometry and relative wall thickness (RWT) are associated with an increased risk of stroke in a hypertensive Chinese population. This study included 462 stroke patients and 3808 non-stroke hypertensive patients. LVH was diagnosed using the criteria of LV mass ⩾49.2 g m(-2.7) for men and 46.7 g m(-2.7) for women. A partition value of 0.43 was used for RWT. LV geometric patterns (normal, concentric remodeling, concentric or eccentric hypertrophy) were calculated according to LVH and RWT. Logistic regression analyses were used to determine the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of LVH, LV geometry abnormality and RWT for stroke. Our study suggested that LVH was associated with increased stroke risk (adjusted OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.25-1.85; multivariate-adjusted OR, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.16-1.75) and that concentric hypertrophy carried the highest risk of stroke (adjusted OR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.21-2.17), followed by eccentric hypertrophy (adjusted OR, 1.51; 95% CI, 1.12-2.03), with concentric remodeling ranked third (adjusted OR, 1.34; 95% CI, 1.01-1.80). RWT was associated with an increased risk of stroke and was independent of LVMI and other risk factors for stroke (adjusted OR, 3.97; 95% CI, 1.10-14.34). Our observations in Chinese patients with hypertension indicated that LVH was an important risk factor for stroke, LV geometry abnormality was related to the presence of stroke, concentric hypertrophy carried the highest risk of stroke in cases of abnormal LV geometry and that RWT was also a risk factor for stroke and was independent of LVMI and other stroke risk factors.