Relation between left ventricular hypertrophy and retinal vascular changes in mild hypertension

BACKGROUND: To evaluate the possible relation between left ventricular hypertrophy and vascular changes in retine, in patients with mild hypertension. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We established a group with 51 hypertensives (27 males and 24 females), with essential mild hypertension, which had never been treated. An ambulatory monitoring blood pressure, 24 hours electrocardiographic monitoring, echocardiography and funduscopy were realized to all of them. RESULTS: Fifty-five per cent of the hypertensives had retinopathy grades I-II. We established two subgroups with and without retinopathy. The age, systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressures, so as body mass index higher in the group with retinovascular damage. No significant differences were observed in the ecographic parameters between two subgroups except the interventricular septal thickness (10.5 +/- 2.1 min in the subgroup without vs 11.1 +/- 2.3 mm in the subgroup with retinovascular damage) (p < 0.05). As 24-hour maximum and mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure, daytime mean systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), daytime and night-time DBP load, as daytime SBP load were higher in the hypertensive patients with retinovascular changes. There was echocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy in 51% of the hypertensive patients, without differences between both subgroups of hypertensive patients. Body mass index (g/m) correlated significantly (p < 0.01) with the retinovascular damage. In the multivariant analysis, male as well as female, the funduscopy correlated with left ventricular mass index (g/m2). We established a discriminant function to separate hypertensives with and without left ventricular hypertrophy and another to separate hypertensives with and without retinopathy. Both functions included body mass index and maximum SBP, so as daytime SBP load and nighttime mean DBP to the left ventricular hypertrophy function. CONCLUSIONS: Left ventricular hypertrophy and retinovascular damage appear early in the course of blood pressure elevation and both changes develop in parallel. Our results indicate that there exists a relation between both cardiac and vascular changes in the hypertension. Body mass index and maximum SBP, appear to be important determinants of structural adaptation in mild hypertension.