Electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy (ECG-LVH) is associated with both cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Obesity attenuates the sensitivity of several ECG-LVH criteria, so body mass index (BMI) adjusted criteria have been developed. However, the prognostic significance of BMI-adjusted ECG-LVH criteria is not known. This analysis included 7812 participants (59.8 ± 13.4 years, 53% women, 50% non-Hispanic-whites) from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The Cornell criteria (R in aVL + S in V3 ≥ 2800 µV in men or ≥2200 µV in women) and Sokolow-Lyon criteria (S in V1 + R in V5 or R in V6 ≥ 3500 µV) criteria were used for LVH. To account for the effects of obesity, the BMI-adjusted Cornell criteria (product of R in aVL + S in V3 and BMI > 60 400 µV kg m-2 ) and the BMI-adjusted Sokolow-Lyon criteria (add 400 µV if overweight, add 800 µV if obese) were used. Compared to traditional ECG-LVH criteria, more participants met criteria for ECG-LVH with BMI-adjusted Cornell voltage (9.9% vs 2.9%) and BMI-adjusted Sokolow-Lyon (13.1% vs 6.4%) criteria. In multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models, the BMI-adjusted Sokolow-Lyon criteria performed no better than traditional criteria (HR 1.18, 95% CI 1.06-1.32 for all-cause, HR 1.38, 95% CI 1.17-1.62 for cardiovascular mortality) and the BMI-adjusted Cornell voltage criteria attenuated the association with all-cause (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.03-1.32) and cardiovascular mortality (HR 1.34, 95% CI 1.13-1.60). Despite potential improvements in the detection of LVH using BMI-adjusted ECG-LVH criteria, adjusting for BMI may result in the loss of prognostic information.
Keywords: BMI-adjusted criteria; electrocardiography; left ventricular hypertrophy; obesity.
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