Abstract
Relation between cardiothoracic ratio (CTR) and echocardiographically determined pa-rameters in patients with chronic renal failure was studied immediately following hemo-dialysis. Sixty patients were classified into 3 groups according to the duration of hemo-dialysis. Group I (21 cases): the duration of dialysis was less than 2 years (mean 0.9&0.5 years). Group 11 (17 cases): 2 to 5 years (mean 3.5&0.9 years). Group III (22 cases): longer than 5 years (mean 8.0&2.2 years). The results were as follows:
(1) CTR of group II (50.0%) and group II (49.6%) were significantly (p<0.05) greater than that of group I (45.6%).
(2) There were no significant differences of left ventricular wall thickness (LVWT) among three groups.
(3) Left ventricular diastolic dimention (LVDd) of group III (51.6mm) was significantly (p<0.05) greater than that of group I (47.0mm).
(4) CTR correlated with LVWT in group II (r=0.69), and correlated with LVDd in group III (r=0.73).
These results suggest that left ventricular hypertrophy alone may account for enlarged CTR in cases of dialysis length of less than 5 years, whereas left ventriculardilation is an additional cause for enlarged CTR in cases of dialysis length of more than 5 years
