A Study on the evaluation of serum uric acid levels in essential hypertension at Coimbatore Medical College

BACK GROUND & OBJECTIVES : The association of raised serum uric acid levels with various cardiovascular risk factors has often led to the debate of whether raised serum uric acid levels could be an independent risk factor in essential hypertension. Hence, we carried out a study to examine the possibility of hyperuricemia causing hypertension, to see if there is a relationship between the serum uric acid levels and severity & if they had duration of hypertension. METHODOLOGY : The study was carried out in Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, the study period was of 12 months from December 2010 to November 2011. A total of 400 patients were studied of which 200 were cases and 200 were controls. The patients were included if they satisfied the JNC VII criteria for hypertension. They were excluded if they were having any other condition known to cause raised serum uric acid levels & secondary hypertension. RESULTS : The study showed that serum uric acid levels were raised in patients with hypertension in comparison to normotensives. The Mean SUA levels between cases and controls were 6.1125 ± 1.5662 and 5.6695 ± 1.3323 respectively with t-value = 3.05, pvalue = .002441. SUA levels in the stages of hypertension showed a mean serum uric acid level in stage 1 hypertension of 5.5979 ± 1.4046 and stage 2 hypertension of 6.2750 ± 1.5836 with the t-value of 2.65 and p-value = 0.0087 which was significant. SUA level in patients with hypertension < 5 years was 5.175 ± 1.1188 and those with ≥ 5 years was 6.9779 ± 1.4175 with the t-value of 9.93 and p-value = 0.0001 which was also significant. INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION : Based on the study carried out, we concluded that SUA can be used as an early biochemical marker to determine the severity and duration of hypertension