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Prevalence of ventricular premature complexes in healthy and untreated hypertensive elderly people

B Komsuoğlu1, E Duman, S S Komsuoğlu

  • 1Department of Cardiology, Medical School, Karadeniz Technical University, Trabzon, Turkey.

Angiology
|June 1, 1993
PubMed

Insights

Ventricular premature complexes are common in elderly individuals, both healthy and hypertensive. However, these findings suggest they are not an independent risk factor in this population.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Geriatrics
  • Electrophysiology

Background:

  • Hypertension is a prevalent condition in the elderly.
  • Left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is a known complication of hypertension.
  • The clinical significance of ventricular arrhythmias in elderly populations requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the prevalence and complexity of ventricular ectopic complexes (VPCs) in elderly individuals.
  • To compare VPC prevalence in healthy subjects, hypertensive patients without LVH, and hypertensive patients with LVH.
  • To determine if VPCs are an independent risk factor in elderly patients.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiographic (ECG) monitoring.
  • Enrolled 130 elderly participants (mean age 72.4 years).
  • Categorized participants into healthy, hypertensive without LVH, and hypertensive with LVH groups.

Main Results:

  • A high prevalence of VPCs was observed in both hypertensive and normotensive elderly groups.
  • Lown grade 1 VPCs were highly prevalent in healthy subjects.
  • Lown grade 2 VPCs were more prevalent in hypertensive patients with LVH (73.5%) compared to those without (48.8%).

Conclusions:

  • Ventricular premature complexes are common in elderly hypertensive patients and healthy elderly individuals.
  • VPCs in these groups did not typically present with high complexity.
  • Ambulatory ECG-detected VPCs in healthy, active, and untreated hypertensive elderly patients are not considered independent risk factors.

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