P-134: Older age does not attenuate hypertrophy regression during antihypertensive treatment in hypertensive patients with left ventricular hypertrophy (the life study)

Aging is associated with cardiac remodeling and hypertrophy in hypertensive patients, but less is known about the influence of age on changes in left ventricular (LV) mass and geometry during antihypertensive treatment. We related age to clinical and echocardiographic findings before and after four years of antihypertensive treatment in a subset of 592 hypertensive patients without concurrent disease in the Losartan Intervention For Endpoint reduction in hypertension study in which patients were randomized to blinded losartan or atenolol based treatment. Patients ≥ 65 years (older group, n=311) included more women and patients with isolated systolic hypertension or albuminuria (all p< 0.05). Compared to patients < 65 years, older patients had higher pulse pressure (PP), LV mass/body surface area and prevalence of concentric hypertrophy at baseline (78 versus 69 mmHg, 127 versus 116 g/m2, and 30 versus 15 %, respectively, all p