Associations of aldosterone to renin ratio with 24 hours ambulatory blood pressure and QTc interval in hypertensive patients

Abstract

BACKGROUND: High aldosterone levels are considered to play a key role in arterial hypertension and might also exert direct effects on the heart. Data on the relationship between the aldosterone to active renin ratio (AARR), a quanti-ty of aldosterone excess, and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) during the night as well as QTc time are however sparse. METHODS: We recruited hypertensive patients from the local outpatient clin-ics, who underwent 24 hour urine collection and in parallel ABPM. Plasma al-dosterone and renin concentrations were measured by a Radio-Immuno-Assay. RESULTS: We included 211 patients (age=60.2±10.2 years; 51.9% females) with a mean systolic/diastolic ABPM value of 128.7±12.8/77.1±9.2 mmHg. In backwards linear regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, BMI, smoking, GFR, HbA1c, NTproBNP, urinary sodium/potassium ratio and ongoing antihy-pertensive medication, AARR was significantly associated with nocturnal- sys-tolic (ß-coefficient=0.177; P=0.017) and -diastolic BP (ß-coefficient=0.162; P=0.027). AARR was also significantly associated with the QTc interval (mean=426 ± 42.4 ms; ß-coefficient=0.121; P=0.038). CONCLUSIONS: In patients with arterial hypertension we found a significant association between AARR and night-time BP as well as QTc prolongation even after adjustment for a broad panel of confounders.

Date of Award	2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Medical University Graz
Supervisor	Burkert Mathias Pieske (Supervisor) & Stefan Pilz (Supervisor)