Aortic-flow propagation velocity is associated with proteinuria and left ventricular hypertrophy in newly diagnosed hypertensive patients.

Objective: Subclinical target organ damage (TOD) is an important long-term complication of hypertension and is associated with cardiovascular events and death. Aortic-flow propagation velocity (APV) is one of the arterial stiffness parameters. The aim of this study was to investigate the predictive value of APV on left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and proteinuria.

Methods: A total of 149 newly diagnosed HT patients were included in the study. Urine samples and blood tests were obtained from each patient for diagnosis of proteinuria. All patients underwent echocardiographic examination. All patients' APV measurements, carotid intima-media thicknesses (CIMT), and ankle-brachial indexes (ABI) were measured and recorded.

Results: The LVH (+) group consisted of 47 patients, and the LVH (-) group consisted of 102 patients. The proteinuria (+) group consisted of 32 patients, and the proteinuria (-) group consisted of 117 patients. Average CIMT was significantly higher in both proteinuria (+) and LVH (+) groups compared with the (-) groups. ABI and APV were significantly lower in both proteinuria (+) and LVH (+) groups compared with the (-) groups. APV was negatively correlated with LVH, proteinuria, and CIMT and positively correlated with ABI. In the multivariate binary logistic regression analysis, APV was the significant independent predictor of proteinuria. Additionally, APV and ABI were found to be independent predictors of LVH or/and proteinuria.

Conclusion: Hypertensive patients who had TOD had worse consequences of APV, CIMT, and ABI. APV had a powerful predictive value to identify the patients with higher risk of TOD among newly diagnosed hypertensive patients.