Although ECG used to be a traditional method to detect left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), its importance has decreased over the years and echocardiography has emerged as a routine technique to diagnose LVH. Intriguingly, an independent negative prognostic effect of the “electrical” LVH (i.e., by ECG voltage criteria) beyond echocardiographic LVH was demonstrated both in hypertension and aortic stenosis (AS), the most prevalent heart valve disorder. Our aim was to estimate associations of the ECG-LVH voltage criteria with echocardiographic LVH and indices of AS severity. We retrospectively manually analyzed ECG tracings of 50 patients hospitalized in our center for severe isolated aortic stenosis, including 32 subjects with echocardiographic LVH. The sensitivity of single traditional ECG-LVH criteria in detecting echocardiographic LVH was 9–34% and their respective specificity averaged 78–100%. The ability to predict echocardiographic LVH was higher for S-waves than R-waves (mean area under the receiver operating curve (AUC): 0.62–0.70 vs. 0.58–0.65). Among combinations of R- and S-waves, the discriminating ability was highest for the Cornell voltage (AUC: 0.71) compared to the Sokolow–Lyon, Romhilt and Gubner–Ungerleider voltage (AUC: 0.62–0.68). By multiple regression, peak aortic pressure gradient was positively related to the Sokolow–Lyon (β = 1.7 ± 0.5, p = 0.002) and Romhilt voltage (β = 1.3 ± 0.5, p = 0.01), but not Cornell (0.5 ± 0.3, p = 0.2) or Gubner-Ungerleider voltage (β = 0.0 ± 0.5, p > 0.9), regardless of LV mass index. In conclusion, echocardiographic LVH and stenosis severity appear to have distinct associations with traditional ECG-LVH criteria in AS. A moderate diagnostic superiority of the Cornell voltage criterion with regard to anatomic LVH might result from its unique ability to include depolarization vectors in both the frontal and horizontal plane with consequent lesser sensitivity to the confounding effect of obesity.

Traditional electrocardiographic (ECG) criteria for left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH), introduced in the pre-echocardiographic era of diagnosis, have a relatively low sensitivity (usually not exceeding 25–40%) in detecting LVH. A novel Peguero-Lo Presti ECG-LVH criterion was recently shown to exhibit a higher sensitivity than the traditional ECG-LVH criteria in hypertension. Our aim was to test the diagnostic ability of the novel Peguero-Lo Presti ECG-LVH criterion in severe aortic stenosis. We retrospectively analyzed 12-lead ECG tracings and echocardiographic records from the index hospitalization of 50 patients with isolated severe aortic stenosis (mean age: 77 ± 10 years; 30 women and 20 men). Exclusion criteria included QRS > 120 ms, bundle branch blocks or left anterior fascicular block, a history of myocardial infarction, more than mild aortic or mitral regurgitation, and significant LV dysfunction by echocardiography. We compared the agreement of the novel Peguero-Lo Presti criterion and traditional ECG-LVH criteria with echocardiographic LVH (LV mass index > 95 g/m2 in women and >115 g/m2 in men). Echocardiographic LVH was found in 32 out of 50 study patients. The sensitivity of the Peguero-Lo Presti criterion in detecting LVH was improved (55% vs. 9–34%) at lower specificity (72% vs. 78–100%) in comparison to 8 single traditional ECG-LVH criteria. Additionally, the positive predictive value (77% vs. 72%), positive likelihood ratio (2.0 vs. 1.5), and odds ratio (3.2 vs. 2.4) were higher for the Peguero-Lo Presti criterion versus the presence of any of these 8 traditional ECG-LVH criteria. Cohen’s Kappa, a measure of concordance between ECG and echocardiography with regard to LVH, was 0.24 for the Peguero-Lo Presti criterion, −0.01–0.13 for single traditional criteria, and 0.20 for any traditional criterion. However, by the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve analysis, the overall ability to discriminate between patients with and without LVH was insignificantly lower for the Peguero-Lo Presti versus Cornell voltage as a continuous variable (area under the ROC curve: 0.65 (95% CI, 0.48–0.81) vs. 0.71 (0.55–0.86), p = 0.5). In conclusion, our preliminary results suggest a slightly better, albeit still low, agreement of the novel Peguero-Lo Presti ECG criterion compared to the traditional ECG-LVH criteria with echocardiographic LVH in severe aortic stenosis.

Background: Cardiac fibrosis is a hallmark of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and has confirmed unfavorable clinical significance. Replacement fibrosis is better known and has already been studied on a larger scale, whereas interstitial fibrosis is less explored. Aims:We aimed to analyze the relationship between serum biomarkers and interstitial fibrosis, as assessed with cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in HCM patients. Methods:We performed 3T CMR scans in 50 HCM patients to assess interstitial fibrosis as expressed by extracellular volume (ECV). In all patients, we determined levels of serum cardiac-specific (troponin T [TnT], N-terminal prohormone of brain natriuretic peptide [NT-proBNP]) and fibrosis-specific (procollagen I C-terminal propeptide, procollagen III N-terminal propeptide, transforming growth factor β1, galectin-3) biomarkers. Patients were divided based on their median value of ECV. Results:The final study population included 49 patients. The median value of ECV in our cohort was 28.1%. Patients stratified according to median ECV differed in terms of several variables: body mass index, late gadolinium extent, NT-proBNP, and galectin-3 levels (all P <0.05). Cardiac biomarkers (TnT and NT-proBNP) and galectin-3 were significantly correlated with ECV (r S = 0.34; P = 0.02; r S = 0.39; P = 0.006; r S = 0.43; P = 0.002, respectively). Galectin-3 and body mass index were found to be independent predictors of ECV (odds ratio [OR],; P = 0.03; OR, 0.81 [0.68-0.97]; P = 0.02, respectively).Conclusions: Galectin-3 was an independent predictor of interstitial fibrosis in HCM patients expressed as elevated ECV values. The other measured fibrosis-specific biomarkers were not useful in detecting interstitial fibrosis in HCM. In addition, there was a positive correlation between classical cardiac biomarkers and interstitial fibrosis in HCM patients.

Non-sustained ventricular tachycardia (nsVT) creates the electrical basis for sudden cardiac death (SCD) in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). We aimed to evaluate the relationship between interstitial fibrosis on cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) and nsVT in HCM. A total of 50 HCM patients underwent CMR with a 3 T scanner to determine the presence of replacement fibrosis expressed by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), and interstitial fibrosis expressed by native T₁, post-contrast T₁, and extracellular volume (ECV). The incidence of nsVT was assessed by Holter monitoring. We detected nsVT in 14 (28%) out of 50 HCM patients. Replacement fibrosis expressed by LGE was present in 37 (74%) patients and only showed a trend towards a differentiation between the groups with and without nsVT (p = 0.07). However, the extent of LGE was clearly higher in the nsVT group (3.8 ± 4.9% vs. 7.94 ± 4.5%, p = 0.002) and was an independent predictor of nsVT in a multivariable regression analysis (OR 1.2; 95%CI 1.02–1.4; p = 0.02). No relationship was observed between interstitial fibrosis and nsVT. To conclude, it was found that it is not the mere presence but the actual extent of LGE that determines the occurrence of nsVT in HCM patients; the role of interstitial fibrosis remains unclear.