Impact of left ventricular concentricity on long-term mortality in a hospital-based population in Japan.

BACKGROUND:The prognostic impact of relative wall thickness (RWT), ventricular concentricity, is controversial. METHODS:We retrospectively analyzed data obtained from 4444 consecutive patients who had undergone both transthoracic echocardiography and electrocardiography at our hospital in 2013. Those who presented with a history of previous episodes of myocardial infarctions and severe or moderate valvular disease were excluded from the analysis. We calculated RWT as follows: (2 x diastolic posterior wall thickness) / (the diastolic LV dimension). We defined high RWT as a ratio > 0.42. A total of 3654 patients were categorized into two groups: 492 with high RWT, and 3162 with normal RWT. RESULTS:The mean ages of those in the normal and high RWT groups were 64.6 (±standard deviation 16.3) and 71.6 (± 12.7) years, respectively (p