Echocardiographic parameters in healthy adolescents vary significantly by gender and sexual maturity rating, highlighting the need to account for these factors when interpreting adolescent echocardiograms.
Echocardiographic interpretation in adolescents should account for gender and maturity; leaves open whether updated normative values are needed.
Summary M-mode echocardiograms were recorded from 298 healthy adolescents between 10 and 16 years of age. Nineteen measured and 10 calculated parameters were correlated with the subjects’ gender and sexual maturity rating. Significant (p<0.05) differences by gender were demonstrated for 21 of 29 parameters. Sexual maturity rating had a significant effect on four of 29 parameters for boys and on five of 29 parameters for girls, when controlling for body surface area. Fourteen of 29 parameters in boys and three of 29 parameters in girls showed a significant effect of sexual maturity rating when controlling for age. The male adolescent growth spurt in lean body mass is paralleled by a similar growth spurt in left ventricular volume.
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Pearl et al. (1992) studied this question.
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