Urinary excretion rate of guanidinoacetic acid as a new marker in hypertensive renal damage.

This study was undertaken to evaluate the relation between the urinary excretion of guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) and other substances in hypertensive patients (6 with borderline hypertension and 29 with hypertension) and 12 normal controls. In 10 of the hypertensive patients, GAA was measured before and after 4 weeks of treatment with calcium entry blocker. In hypertensive patients the rate of GAA urinary excretion was 43.5 +/- 17-4 micrograms/min, which was much lower than in the controls (77.2 +/- 35.9 micrograms/min) (p less than 0.01). There was no significant difference among these groups in creatinine clearance (CCr), serum creatinine (Cr), beta 2-microglobulin (BMG) or in the urinary excretion of BMG, N-acetyl-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) or radiosensitive microalbumin (mAlb). The urinary excretion rate of GAA was positively correlated with CCr (r = 0.62; p less than 0.01), and negatively correlated with mean blood pressure (r = -0.49; p less than 0.01). Finally, the GAA excretion was significantly correlated with urinary NAG (r = 0.24; p less than 0.05) and serum BMG (r = -0.31; p less than 0.05), but not with urinary mAlb (r = 0.12; p less than 0.05). Ten hypertensive patients followed for 4 weeks attained their ultimate mean blood pressure reduction after treatment (from 119.3 +/- 8.0 to 101.7 +/- 13.5 mm Hg; p less than 0.001), but the GAA/Cr ratio in the urinary excretion was significantly elevated (from 0.054 +/- 0.016 to 0.070 +/- 0.02; p less than 0.01).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)