[Relation between changes in retinal microcirculation and other organ damage in hypertension and regression with antihypertensive treatment].

BACKGROUND AND

OBJECTIVE

The possibility to aplicate a semi-automatic computerized system to evaluate the calibre of retinal blood vessels, has shown very good reproducibility, and have let us measure the calibres of retinal arterioles and veins, and their ratio (AVR).

PATIENTS AND METHOD: We have measured the calibres of retinal vessels in a group of 51 hypertensive outpatients before and after 6 months' treatment with losartan or, losartan plus hydrochlorothiazide if the association was required to adequate control of the blood pressure.

RESULTS

AVR increased from 0.7530 (0.03) to 0.7563 (0.03) (p = 0.005). We have related these modifications with damage in other target organs and we have found out a inverse relation between AVR and left ventricular mass index. This relation could be confirmed in multiple regression analysis. We have found no relation between AVR and microalbuminuria, probably because of its variability.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest a relation between retinal microcirculation and hypertensive cardiopathy, but they should be interpreted with caution because the sample is small.