A Study on the Prevalence of Increased Left Ventricular Mass and Proteinuria in Newly Diagnosed Hypertensive Patients

INTRODUCTION: Hypertension is a major cause of morbidity and mortality. The heart, arterial vessels, brain, kidney and retinal vasculature are major target organs adversely affected by high blood pressure. In adults there is a continuous incremental risk of target organ damage across levels of both systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Cardio vascular disease risk doubles for every 20mmHg systolic and 10mm Hg diastolic rise in blood pressure. Proteinuria has recently been identified as a cardiovascular risk marker in hypertensive patients. AIM OF THE STUDY: In this study, we aim to study the prevalence of increased left ventricular mass, different cardiac geometry, proteinuria and correlate proteinuria and LV mass in recently diagnosed hypertension patients attending OPD in Govt. Chengalpattu Medical College, Chengalpattu. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted from 2018 to 2019 for a period of 12 months. There were 230 patients were included in this study, the age group of patient were between 40 to 65 with a BP of >140-90 in at least last two visits were included. Comprehensive clinical examination, appropriate evaluation and echocardiographic examination done. RESULTS: Majority patients were in fifty decade 40.5%. In the study, included male and female ratios were 54.7% : 45.3. In the study, most of the patient were distributed on Stage II- 61%. 140 patients were in stage II hypertension among them 93 patients 66.5% had abnormal cardiac geometry. 90 patients were in stage I hypertension among them 27 patients 30% had abnormal cardiac geometry. Among 230 patients, 47.8% patients had normal geometry and LV mass. 17% patient had concentric hypertrophy, 22.6% patients had concentric remodelling and eccentric hypertrophies were found to be 12.6% patients. 102 patients had Microproteinuria, 20.5% patients had normal cardiac geometry, 79.5% patients had abnormal cardiac geometry. Significant association between abnormal cardiac geometry and Microproteinuria in patients with hypertension. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of increased left ventricular mass denoting LVH in this study is 52%. There is significant association of renal dysfunction in the form of proteinuria and LVH in recently detected hypertensive patients. Microalbuminuria assessment in hypertensive patients is an important test for the evaluation of target organ damage. Screening for urine albumin excretion should be extensively adopted in clinical care as a relatively simple, readily available and cheap process to facilitate early vascular disease detection as a strategy of averting hypertension related complications like LVH and optimal management