Results
The final analytic sample consisted of 682 subjects.
Approximately 10% of the sample was Age distribution seen in Figure 1.
African American, with the remainder being of other race/ethnicity
(Figure 2). Chi-square tests were conducted to compare individuals with
suspected HCM to controls in rates of LVH, T wave inversion, LBBB, and
left atrial enlargement. Rates of ECG abnormalities across HCM patients
and controls are presented in Figure 3. Consistent with our hypotheses,
our findings indicated that rates of LVH were higher in patients with
suspected HCM (23.5%) than in patients without suspected HCM (5.6%)
(p = .002). Similarly, we found elevated rates of T wave
inversion among patients with suspected HCM (17.6%) in comparison to
controls (4.1%) (p = .007). Comparisons of rates of LBBB and
left atrial abnormalities were unable to be conducted, as there were no
patients with suspected HCM who showed evidence of these abnormalities
on ECG in our sample. Examinations of the presence of any identified ECG
abnormality showed that less than 25% of suspected HCM patients had an
ECG abnormality observed on screening, though rates of any abnormality
among HCM patients (23.5%) remained significantly elevated relative to
controls (8.7%) (p = .036).