[Echocardiographic changes in patients with chronic renal insufficiency on hemodialysis]

Cardiovascular diseases cause death in 40% patients on the chronic haemodialysis program. Our aim was to assess the heart changes in these patients by echocardiography. We have tested 40 patients, but 34 of them accomplished criteria for this study. There were 19 (55.88%) females and 15 (44.12%) males. The average age was 44 years and average duration of haemodialysis treatment was 4.72 years. The research was made with ultrasound device TOSHIBA SSH 65 A SONOLAYER and transducers 3.5 and 2.75 MHz. Twenty patients (58.82%) have had pathological echocardiogram. Ten patients (29.42%) have had conditionally normal echocardiogram while four patients (11.76%) have had completely normal echocardiogram. In patients with pathological echocardiogram, some of the left ventricle hypertrophy forms dominated. Echocardiography is a useful method in morphologic and functional cardiac assessment at the last stage renal disease patients on the chronic haemodialysis program. Using the aforementioned method we are able to select the patients who need intensive cardiac care.