Relationship between aortic stiffness and albumin excretion rate in untreated essential hypertensive patients

Usefulness of microalbuminuria in cardiovascular risk stratification of essential hypertensive patients

<i>Background/Aims:</i> To evaluate the influence of microalbuminuria (albumin excretion rate – AER) determination and echocardiography (ECHO) on cardiovascular risk stratification, initially performed according the 1999 WHO/ISH guidelines by using only routine diagnostic procedures with or without fundal examination. <i>Methods:</i> 312 essential hypertensives attending our institution were studied retrospectively. Cardiovascular risk was assessed in a semiquantitative way using four categories of absolute cardiovascular disease risk (low, medium, high and very high risk), as proposed by the 1999 WHO/ISH guidelines, on the basis of data on the average 10-year risk o…