To determine a simplified method to identify presence of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) in pediatric populations because the relationship between heart growth and body growth in children has made indexing difficult for younger ages.

Healthy children (n = 400; 52% boys, 0-18 years of age) from 2 different European hospitals were studied to derive a simplified formula. Left ventricular mass (LVM) was calculated according to the Devereux formula. The derived approach to index LVM was tested on a validation cohort of 130 healthy children from a different hospital center.

There was a strong nonlinear correlation between height and LVM. LVM was best related to height to a power of 2.16 with a correction factor of 0.09. Analysis of residuals for LVM/[(height^2.16) + 0.09] showed an homoscedastic distribution in both sexes throughout the entire height range. A partition value of 45 g/m^2.16 was defined as the upper normal limit for LVM index. As opposed to formula suggested by current guidelines (ie, LVM/height^2.7) when applying the proposed approach in the validation cohort of 130 healthy participants, no false positives for LVH were found (0% vs 8%; P < .01).

Our data support the possibility to have a single partition (ie, 45 g/m^2.16) value across the whole pediatric age range to identify LVH, without the time-consuming need of computing specific percentiles for height and sex.