[Echocardiographic evaluation of the size and systolic and diastolic function of heart muscle i patients with acromegaly].
In 20 patients with acromegaly, morphology of the heart and its systolic and diastolic function were studied by echocardiography, and growth hormone concentration was examined in the serum. Increased muscle mass of the left ventricle was found and that increase depended on disease duration and the growth hormone serum concentration. An increase was also shown of the left ventricular end-diastolic dimension, and the dimensions of left ventricle posterior wall and intraventricular septum, as well as an increase of end-systolic left ventricular dimension and of the size of the left atrium. Out of systolic function parameters, an increase was shown of stroke volume, cardiac output and cardiac index. In 40% of the studied patients an impairment was shown of left ventricular diastolic function but in a half of them no diseases other than acromegaly were found which could have been its cause.