Change in systolic left ventricular performance after 3 years of antihypertensive treatment: The Losartan Intervention for Endpoint (LIFE) study

We have shown that hypertensive patients with left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy have decreased LV midwall mechanics, but the effect of antihypertensive therapy remains unclear. Echocardiograms were recorded at baseline in 679 hypertensive patients and ECG LV hypertrophy and repeated yearly during 3 years of blinded treatment to achieve target blood pressures (BPs) of 140/90 mm Hg. On average, BP was reduced from 174+/-21 to 147+/-19 over 95+/-11 to 82+/-10 mm Hg and LV mass from 234+/-56 to 194+/-50 g. Endocardial fractional shortening (FS) decreased slightly, whereas midwall FS increased from 15.4+/-2.0% to 16.8+/-2.1% and stress-corrected midwall FS increased from 97+/-13 to 105+/-12% (all P