Frequency and possible associations of albuminuria in patients with essential hypertension: a single‑center experience

Background Microalbuminuria is associated with a high incidence of morbidity and mortality. It is considered as an early marker of kidney damage and a predictor for end‑stage renal disease and cardiovascular disease. Thus, it is of great importance to study albuminuria in high‑risk groups such as the hypertensive patients to decrease the morbidity and mortality by decreasing the progression of kidney diseases on those groups. Aims The present study was undertaken to find out the frequency and association of microalbuminuria in newly diagnosed essential hypertension. Patients and methods This is a cross‑sectional hospital analytic study enrolling all the outpatients nephrology and internal medicine clinics within the period from 2016 January to 2017 March. We enrolled all the patients with the positive inclusion criteria and divided them into two groups; those who are recently diagnosed as essential hypertensive patients (85 patients) aged between 25 and 65 years and (415 normotensive) as normotensive healthy participants with the same age groups. Exclusion criteria were age less than 25 years and more than 65 years, diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, end‑stage renal failure, nephrotic syndrome, pregnancy, and under steroid therapy. Results The study showed that 17% of the patients were hypertensive; 28.8% of hypertension cases and 13.1% of normotensive patients had microalbuminuria in the total population (P = 0.000). Twenty‑two percent of the hypertensive cases had macroalbuminuria and 3% of the normotensive patients had macroalbuminuria with a P value of 0.000. Advanced age is associated with the increase in the albumin–creatinine ratio (P = 0.000). Conclusion By showing the strong association between microalbuminuria and hypertension, our findings suggest that microalbuminuria could be a useful marker to assess risk management of cardiovascular disease and renal disease.