Increased left ventricular mass in patients with essential hypertension, coronary artery disease, chronic renal failure or in general population has been suggested as a useful predictor of increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Many studies have reported that left ventricular mass is correlated postively with body size. Thereafter normalization of left ventricular studies, but it is uncertain which is appropriate. This study was designed to determine the appropriate method for normalization of left ventricular mass to exclude influence of body size in normal adults.

We measured left ventricular mass 100 normal adults by M-mode echocardiogram using ASE cube method without(Devereux and Reichek's method) and with correction(Devereux and Alonso's method). Left ventricular mass were normalized for body weight, height, body surface area, body surface area^1.5, height^2.0 and height^2.7

1) Left ventricular mass by Devereux and Reichek's method correlated well with that by Devereux and Alonso's method(r=1.0,p<0.001).

2) Corrected left ventricular mass correlated well with weight(r=0.64, p<0.001), height(r=0.49, p<0.05), body surface area(r=0.53, p<0.01) and body mass index(r=0.58, p<0.001).

3) Correlation coefficients of left ventricular mass/weight with weight, of ventricular mass/height with height, of ventricular mass/height^2.0 with height, of ventricular mass/height^2.7 with height, of ventricular mass/body surface area with body surface area and of ventricular mass/body surface area^1.5 with body surface area were 0.12, -0.05, -0.29, -0.42, 0.13 and -0.11 respectively.

4) Peak systolic wall stress correlated with age and left ventricular mass, but end systolic wall stress did not correlated with left ventricular mass.

The current indexation method of left ventricular mass for height may reduce the variability associated with body size. Furthermore, it could be used reliably in normal Korean adults.