Cardiovascular risk in subjects with left ventricular concentric remodeling at baseline examination: a meta-analysis

It is debated whether subjects with concentric remodeling (CR, normal left ventricular mass index (LVMI) and increased relative wall thickness (RWT)) are at higher cardiovascular risk than those with normal geometry (NG, normal LVMI and RWT). The aim of this study was to perform a meta-analysis of studies evaluating cardiovascular events in subjects with CR and NG according to baseline classification. We searched for articles evaluating cardiovascular outcome in subjects with CR compared with those with NG, and reporting adjusted hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Six studies were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled population consisted of 7465 subjects with CR and NG. During the follow-up, they experienced 852 events. When compared with NG, the overall adjusted HR was 1.36 (95% CI 1.03-1.78) for CR, P<0.03. There was some heterogeneity between studies. Subgroup meta-analysis showed that increased cardiovascular risk in subjects with CR was more relevant in studies evaluating hypertensive and Caucasian subjects and reporting both fatal and non-fatal events. Cardiovascular risk is significantly higher in subjects with CR than in those with NG. This aspect is more evident in studies including hypertensive patients and Caucasian populations and reporting global cardiovascular risk.