Ashraf M. Anwar, Mansour M Mostafa and Youssef F. M. Nosir
Aim: The current study was designed to assess left ventricular (LV) mass in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) using 2-dimensional echocardiography (2DE).
Subjects and methods: The study included 165 patients (mean age 56.5 ± 12.5 years, 69.7% males) divided into 3 equal groups. I: included patients with DM only, II: included patients with hypertension only and III: included patients with both. Additional 35 normal subjects were added as control group. LV dimensions, wall thickness, systolic function and mass were assessed by 2DE.
Results: Compared to normal’s, Group I and Group III patients showed signi fi cant increase of LV dimensions, wall thickness and mass (all p<0.0001). Comparison between Group I and Group III showed no signi fi cant difference in all values except for LV wall thickness which was signi fi cantly higher in Group III than Group I (1.3 ± 0.2 cm vs 1.4 ± 0.2 cm; p<0.006). In Group II patients, LV wall thickness, mass and mass index were signi fi cantly higher than in Group I (p<0.001) while LV dimensions showed no signi fi cant difference between both patient groups. All patients in Group I, II and III showed signi fi cant reduction in LV fractional shortening than normal’s (28.6 ± 7.0 vs 35.7 ± 7.1; p<0.0001) with no signi fi cant difference between the three groups.
Conclusion: DM is an independent risk factor for the increased LV mass and impaired systolic function regardless of association with hypertension or not.