The author compared the informative value of 55 different electrocardiographic criteria of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) determined by ECG performed by the conventional 12-lead method, Frank's orthogonal method and by the simplified 4-lead electrocardiographic method, developed by the author, in 244 healthy subjects and in 134 hypertensive patients. The informative value of the LVH criteria according to the 4-lead ECG method is comparable to that of the conventional 12-lead ECG, while the predicative value of the LVH criteria by the 4-lead ECG is even slightly superior to the ECG recorded according to the orthogonal method.