Synapse
⌘+K
Synapse
PulseExploreClubsResearchersJournals
Instagram
HomeClubsExplore
September 3, 2026International Journal of General MedicineOpen Access

Five-variable clinical nomogram identifies left atrial enlargement in essential hypertension with ~0.94 AUC.

View Full Paper
Ask AI
Bookmark
Share

Why the study?

Left atrial enlargement is a critical marker of target organ damage in essential hypertension, but simple and accessible tools for individualized early screening in routine practice remain limited.

Population

251 hypertensive patients admitted between August 2023 and September 2024

Design

Single-center retrospective cross-sectional study

Key result

A diagnostic nomogram incorporating five clinical variables demonstrated high internal discrimination for identifying left atrial enlargement in essential hypertension, with an AUC of 0.937.

Authors

WWWei WenYHYanyu HuangJRJiahuan Rao

Discussion

Loading...

Member takes

Overview

May aid preliminary risk stratification in hypertension; leaves open external validation before clinical use.

Key Points

  • To develop and internally validate an accessible diagnostic nomogram using standard clinical metrics to estimate the probability of left atrial enlargement in patients with essential hypertension.
  • Retrospectively analyzed clinical and echocardiographic data from 251 patients with essential hypertension admitted between August 2023 and September 2024 using a cross-sectional design.
  • Entered five prespecified variables (age, hypertension duration, atrial fibrillation, hypertension stage, and coronary heart disease) into a multivariable logistic regression model to construct the nomogram.
  • Older age (OR = 1.15, 95% CI: 1.08–1.24, p < 0.001), longer hypertension duration (OR = 2.00, 95% CI: 1.25–3.57, p = 0.003), and atrial fibrillation (OR = 3.70, 95% CI: 1.15–12.12, p = 0.028) were independent predictors of left atrial enlargement.
  • The diagnostic nomogram achieved high discriminative performance with an apparent AUC of 0.937, an optimism-corrected AUC of 0.920 after 1,000 bootstrap resamples, and a mean absolute calibration error of 0.017.

Study Design

Type

Cross-Sectional (n=251)

Multicenter

No

Structured PICO

P
Population
251 adult patients with essential hypertension were retrospectively evaluated to develop and internally validate a diagnostic nomogram for identifying left atrial enlargement.
E
Exposure
Diagnostic nomogram incorporating 5 clinical variables (age, hypertension duration, atrial fibrillation, hypertension stage, and coronary heart disease) to estimate the probability of left atrial enlargement.
O
Outcome
Presence of left atrial enlargement (LAE), defined as a left atrial anteroposterior diameter >40 mm in men and >38 mm in women.surrogate

Main Result

Effect estimate: AUC 0.937 (95% CI 0.899-0.975)

A novel 5-variable clinical nomogram demonstrated high internal discrimination for identifying left atrial enlargement in patients with essential hypertension, offering a simple tool for early risk stratification.

Limitations

  • Retrospective, single-center design with a relatively small sample size and low event count (26 LAE cases).
  • Lack of external validation in larger, independent, multicenter populations.
  • LAE definition was based on left atrial anteroposterior diameter rather than the guideline-recommended volumetric measure (LAVI).
  • Echocardiographic parameters such as LVDD and LVH were not included as candidate predictors.
  • Retrospective, single-center design with a relatively small sample size (n=251) and low event count (26 LAE cases), increasing the risk of selection bias and model overfitting.
  • Use of left atrial anteroposterior diameter rather than the current guideline-recommended volumetric measure (LAVI) due to historical data availability.

Cite This Study

Wen et al. (2026) conducted a cross-sectional in Essential hypertension (n=251). Clinical predictors (age, hypertension duration, atrial fibrillation, hypertension stage, coronary heart disease) was evaluated on Discriminative performance of the nomogram for identifying left atrial enlargement (AUC 0.937, 95% CI 0.899-0.975). A diagnostic nomogram incorporating five clinical variables demonstrated high internal discrimination for identifying left atrial enlargement in essential hypertension, with an AUC of 0.937.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9935d8636c6408cfa7e619https://doi.org/10.2147/ijgm.s619567
View Full Paper
Ask AI
Bookmark
Share