Original Article
Dr. Gilberto Cairo Sáez
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: High blood pressure is a very frequent condition that deteriorates the so calls target organs: brain, heart and kidney. Objective: to identify the level of renal affectation in non-complicated hypertensive patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A transversal descriptive study was designed in “José Marti” community in Santa Clara; it included a random sample of 47 patients (15%) from a universe of 311 hypertensive patients without evidences of clinical complications. Plasma glucose, creatinine, cholesterol, triglycerides, and uric acid were measured; urinary sediment microscopy was performed as well as search for microalbuminuria. Echocardiogram and funduscopy were performed to all cases. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The majority of patients were white women and the most frequent risk factors were overweight, hypertensive retinopathy grade I or II, the non-white color of the skin and left ventricular hypertrophy. The microalbuminuria was positive in eight patients (17%) while 27 (51.1%) had a creatinine clearance less than 90 ml/min/m2 BS and 13 (27.3%) less than 60 ml/min/m2 BS, there were evidences of Hypertensive Heart Disease in 36 (76.5%) patients, of them 11 (23.4%) showed evidences of left atrial dilation, 80% had evidences of renal dysfunction in spite of having normal creatinine, the only variable that correlated significantly with renal affectation was the illness evolution time (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Hypertensive patients even without evidences of clinical complications had a hidden kidney affectation, longer evolution of hypertension increases the frequency of renal function decline.