CARDIAC STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL ABNORMALITIES IN ADULT PATIENTS WITH GROWTH-HORMONE DEFICIENCY

Little information is available on cardiac involvement in GH-deficient adults. Thus, we evaluated cardiac structure and function by means of one- and two-dimensional echocardiography in 11 adult patients [3 wom en and 8 men; mean age, 27.2 +/- 3.8 (+/-SD) yr] affected with GH defi ciency. Twelve age- and sex-matched normal subjects served as the cont rol group. All patients had been treated with extractive GH over 9 yr, and therapy withdrawal had been performed at least 3 yr before enteri ng the study. GH-deficient patients had significantly lower values of interventricular septum (7.1 +/- 1 vs. 9 +/- 0.4 mm; P < 0.01) and lef t ventricular posterior wall thickness (6.1 +/- 1 vs. 9 +/- 0.4 mm; P < 0.01), which resulted in a significantly smaller left ventricular ma ss index (54 +/- 11 vs. 85 +/- 15 g/m(2); P < 0.001). The left ventric ular end-diastolic and end-systolic diameters did not differ significa ntly after correction for body area surface, whereas ejection phase in dices showed lower values, with a fractional shortening of 34 +/- 4% v s. 38 +/- 5% (P < 0.05) and an ejection fraction of 59 +/- 9% vs. 69 /- 10% (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the results of this study demonstrat e the involvement of cardiac muscle in patients affected with GH defic iency.