Accuracy of the novel Peguero Lo-Presti criterion for electrocardiographic detection of left ventricular hypertrophy in a black African population

The diagnostic accuracy of the electrocardiogram for left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) is limited. Recently, Peguero and collaborators proposed a novel voltage criterion for its detection with reportedly higher accuracy than the commonly used Cornell and Sokolow‐Lyon criteria. While studies done in various populations have confirmed it, there are no available data from black African populations. We conducted a cross‐sectional study in a population from Cameroon to compare the Peguero‐Lo Presti criterion to the older Cornell, Sokolow‐Lyon, and Cornell product criteria, pertaining to their sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), with echocardiography as the reference standard. The study population consisted of 238 participants (54.2% female) with a mean age of 58 (SD 13) years. On echocardiography, the prevalence of LVH was 45.3% (n = 108). The sensitivity was 48.14%, 63.89%, 63.89%, and 67.29% for the Sokolow‐Lyon, Peguero‐Lo Presti, Cornell, and Cornell product criteria, respectively. The specificity was 73.84%, 75.97%, 79.23%, and 82.31% for the Peguero‐Lo Presti, Cornell product, Cornell, and Sokolow‐Lyon criteria, respectively. The overall accuracy of the Peguero‐Lo Presti (AUC = 0.689) was not significantly different from that of the Cornell (AUC = 0.714), the Cornell product (AUC = 0.717), and the Sokolow‐Lyon (AUC = 0.652) (all p ˃ .05). Hypertension and gender influenced the agreement between ECG criteria and echocardiography in the detection of LVH. In conclusion, in this black African population, Peguero‐Lo Presti was not significantly more or less accurate than Cornell or Sokolow‐Lyon.