Ventricular Function in Elderly Hypertensive Patients: A Radionuclide Assessment

Summary

Radionuclide ventriculography (RNV) was used to study the influences of age and the duration of hypertension on left ventricular function in 3 groups of patients: 22 normotensive adults, 126 hypertensive adults, and 53 hypertensive elderly. The elderly hypertensive patients showed, in comparison with the normotensives, an increase of SVR, end-diastolic volume (EDV) and end-systolic volume (ESV), and reduced ejection fraction (EF) with comparable change in mean ejection rate (MER), cardiac output (CO), HR, stroke volume (SV), blood volume (BV), and systolic blood pressure (SBP)/ESV. In comparison with hypertensive adults, they had increased SVR with similarly increased BV, EF, ESV, and SBP/ESV and reduced CO, SV, EDV, and MER. Hemodynamic parameters had negative correlations with age and with duration of hypertension, while a positive correlation was recorded between SVR and age. Thus, advanced age provides an additional impairment to ventricular function to that already induced by hypertension by means of a further increase of SVR and reduced ventricular distensibility as the relation of BV to EDV shows.