Echocardiography in the evaluation of a hypertensive patient: an invaluable tool or simply following the routine?

Abstract

H ypertension is a heterogeneous disorder with a number of welldefined as well as putative etiologies. The World Health Organization estimates that hypertension may cause 7.1 million premature deaths and 4.5% of the disease burden worldwide. Hypertension is a major risk factor for stroke and cardiovascular diseases, and is thus associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Hypertensive heart disease is a complex entity that involves changes to the cardiovascular system resulting from arterial hypertension; it is therefore the major cause of hypertension-related complications. The development of Doppler echocardiography has offered new approaches regarding both insights into pathophysiology and clinical implications that affect hypertensive patients. For these reasons, it is obvious that echocardiographic assessment is very important in the clinical management of a hypertensive patient. We aimed at reviewing “old” and newer data regarding the contributions of echocardiography to the evaluation of a hypertensive patient.