[The prognostic characteristics of hypertensive left ventricular hypertrophy in a rural population]

One hundred and twenty-six rural hypertensive patients with ECG left ventricular hypertrophy (HT-LVH) were followed up for 10 years to investigate the prognostic characteristics in a population with low prevalence of hypertension (2.93%) and low plasma cholesterol (4.59 +/- 1.00mmol/L). A cohort of age, sex, region and occupation matched hypertensives without LVH (HT, n = 163) and normotensives (NT, n = 275) served as controls. The major cause of death in rural hypertensives with ECG LVH in this study was stroke (56.8%). After stratification of BP, no significant difference of stroke risk was found between patients with LVH and hypertensives without LVH, while cardiovascular risk in the patients with LVH plus ST segment depression persisted. LVH per se seems not to be an independent factor for stroke. The high stroke rate in patients with LVH may be ascribed to the coexisting higher level of BP. After adjustment of coexisting hypertension, ECG LVH based on voltage only was not an independent risk factor of stroke and cardiovascular events, while LVH plus ST segment depression was closely related to cardiovascular events. In this low level, plasma cholesterol did not affect the mortality rate of stroke.