Echocardiographic and holter findings in 321 uremic patients on maintenance hemodialysis.

Abstract

Cardiac manifestations in 321 patients on chronic hemodialysis (dialysis duration of from 0.1 to 11.3 years) were examined with non-invasive technique. In contrast to the previous assumption that cardiac dilatation and pericardial effusion are common in patients on chronic hemodialysis, interventricular septal hypertrophy (51.3%) and left ventricular posterior wall hypertrophy (47.1%) on echocardiography and left ventricular hypertrophy (47.0%) on ECG were the most frequent abnormalities in these patients. Although premature beats on routine ECG were found in a limited number of patients (4.7%), ventricular premature beats were recognized in 45.7% and high grade arrhythmias in 27.2% of 92 patients examined with 24-hour Holter ECG monitoring. There were no high grade arrhythmias and the frequency of ventricular premature beats was 19.4% in 31 age-matched healthy subjects studied. Furthermore, the PQ interval was progressively prolonged in relation to the duration of hemodialysis. This finding may suggest that long-term hemodialysis is associated with disturbances of the conduction system. These results indicate that myocardial hypertrophy and high grade arrhythmias are the prominent findings in uremic patients maintained on hemodialysis. We consider that such high grade arrhythmias could be responsible for a high incidence of cardiac death in these patients.