Thesis Abstract

Background Echocardiography has become and important tool in medical imaging. It is used in the confirmation of heart diseases especially hypertension, in Nigeria major cities using conventional echocardiography done with transoephageal echocardiography.
Aim To describe the pattern of finding in echocardiogram of hypertensive patients in Conquest Medical Imaging Centre, Enugu.
Patient and method a retrospective study of reports of patients who underwent echocardiography in Conquest Medical Imaging Centre between January 2011- December 2012 was conducted.
Result The frequency of male referred for echocardiography for hypertension was significantly more than female (58%) 42%; P<0.05). Age group between 4 1-80 years had the highest frequency of referral (82.9%). Hypertrophy was dormant (49%). The of disease presentation are Heart failures/CCF 23( ), Diabetes mellitus (5%), palpitation/SOBE (3%), sickle cell anemia (3.5%), Edema, Dizziness/confusion, obesity (17) each, chest pain/Angina (2%), CKD Heart block, Arrhythmia, Arterial fibrillation and flutter CHB, Alcohol Heart disease, post systolic Murmur (0.6%) each.
Other findings are Emphysema always show with degenerative diseases, right heart dysfunction goes with pericardial effusion and septal arrthomias due to pulmonary hypertension with hyperkinesias and poor global wall motion and, ejection fraction and pseudo normalization dilated right heart goes with obesity, COPD with S.A.D ration grade. Thickened or double contort with evidence of pericarditis. It was also noted that there could be degenerative diseases even with normal wall motion. Longitudinal and spontaneous echo, were also noted. Pulmonary hypertension (5%), corpulmonal (l%), flat iv septum with normal wall thickness but paradoxical septal motion due to right ventricular pressure over load (3.S%), aneurysm and pulmonary hypertension (5%) arrthmias (5%), rheumatic atrium and mitral stenosis and pulmonary hypertension (9.5%), pericardities (2%), COPD (1%), Trchcardia (0.6%), sigmoid iv septum (1%), Ischemic iv septum (O.6%) and aortic aneurysm with burgs (1%).
Conclusion The result of this study showed that males are referred to echo than females. Hypertrophy is the commonness disease presentation. Left ventricular hypertrophy was a predominant finding in most of the patients. The result shows that no patient below 20 years was referred for echocardiography in the Center, most of the referrals are adults. There were also incidental echo findings in some patients referred for echocardiography
Keywords Echocardiogram, hypertensive patients, referral, findings, pattern, Conquest Medical Imagining Centre.

Thesis Overview