Microalbuminuria is a strong, independent predictor of cardiovascular events in hypertensive patients, and its reduction under treatment parallels changes in cardiovascular risk.
Does the assessment and reduction of microalbuminuria improve cardiovascular risk evaluation and outcomes in hypertensive patients?
Routine assessment of microalbuminuria is a valuable, low-cost tool for identifying high cardiovascular risk and monitoring treatment efficacy in hypertensive patients.
Microalbuminuria, i.e., abnormal urinary excretion of albumin, which is detectable by low cost and widely available tests, is a first-line tool for identifying hypertensive patients who are at higher cardiovascular (CV) risk. Numerous studies have provided evidence that microalbuminuria is a concomitant of cardiac and vascular damage as well as a strong, independent predictor of CV events. An important, emerging issue is that the risk for CV morbidity and mortality is linearly related to urinary albumin excretion and persists well below the currently used cutoff for defining microalbuminuria. Furthermore, late-breaking evidence suggests that a reduction of albuminuria under antihypertensive treatment is paralleled by changes in CV risk. The routine search for target organ damage by means of microalbuminuria could lead to a significant improvement in the evaluation and treatment of patients with primary hypertension.
Pontremoli et al. (Fri,) conducted a review in Hypertension. Microalbuminuria was evaluated on Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Microalbuminuria is a strong, independent predictor of cardiovascular events in hypertensive patients, and its reduction under treatment parallels changes in cardiovascular risk.