[The organ damage in arterial hypertension].

The development of hypertension is associated with the presence of cardiovascular structural alterations. The principal target organs of hypertensive disease are the heart, brain, kidney and eye. Although left ventricular hypertrophy is an initially useful and well tolerated adaptive mechanism because it tends to reduce wall stress, it may subsequently lead to impaired cardiac function and even heart failure. Vascular structural alterations include reduced compliance, the appearance of atheromatous lesions in the large arteries, and hypertrophy or remodelling of small artery walls, and may be involved in the onset of retinal, renal and brain lesions. Technological progress now enables us to evaluate cardiovascular structural alterations early on as well as to monitor their natural history and the modifications induced by antihypertensive therapy. There is no question as to capacity of antihypertensive therapy to reduce the incidence of stroke, heart failure, renal failure and severe hypertensive retinopathy. Although a number of drugs are able to lower blood pressure, ACE-inhibitors and calcium entry blockers more effectively bring about the regression of left ventricular hypertrophy and, probably, also the retrocession of structural alterations in small resistance arteries; they seem to have a beneficial effect on structural alterations in large arteries as well. Although the regression of left ventricular hypertrophy could be associated with an improved prognosis, no data are available yet on the prognostic significance of the presence and regression of vascular structural alterations.