Researchers compare risk of target organ damage in masked versus sustained hypertension

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Nov 19 2020

In a new publication from Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications, Yue Wu, Guoyue Zhang, Rong Hu and Jianlin Du from The Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, China consider the risk of target organ damage in patients with masked hypertension versus sustained hypertension.

The authors compared the risk of target organ damage in masked hypertension (MH) and sustained hypertension (SH) through a systematic review and meta-analysis of PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library of relevant case-control studies.

Articles on MH and SH were selected according to the inclusion criteria and were analyzed. The primary end point was target organ damage in the heart. The secondary end points were target organ damage in the kidneys and blood vessels.

Seventeen studies that met the screening criteria were included in the meta-analysis. Compared with the SH group, in the MH group carotid intima-media thickness (IMT) and E/A ratio were significantly greater and the prevalence of left ventricular remodeling and the pulse wave velocity were significantly lower.

Other indicators in the heart, kidneys, and blood vessels were not statistically different between the two groups. IMT: P=0.01, E/A ratio: P=0.01, prevalence of left ventricular remodeling: P=0.02, pulse wave velocity: P=0.01.

The study shows that MH may have almost the same degree of target organ damage as SH, so clinicians may need to consider target organ damage.