Evaluation of endothelial function in hypertensive elderly patients by high-resolution ultrasonography.
BACKGROUND
Multiple investigations, both in experimental models and in middle-aged patients with essential hypertension, demonstrate impaired endothelium-dependent vasodilatation.


OBJECTIVE
We attempted to determine whether hypertension still exerts additional negative effect on endothelial function of large arteries in hypertensive elderly patients who may already be affected by endothelial dysfunction due to aging.


METHODS
We compared 13 elderly patients with hypertension [69 +/- 9 years, (mean +/- standard deviation)] with 13 matched healthy elderly subjects (72 +/- 6 years) as controls. Using high-resolution vascular ultrasound, we measured brachial artery responses to reactive hyperemia (with increased flow causing endothelium-dependent dilatation) and sublingual nitroglycerin (causing endothelium-independent dilatation).


RESULTS
Flow-mediated dilatation correlated inversely with age (r = -0.60, p = 0.03) in the controls. Flow-mediated dilatation was significantly impaired in hypertensive elderly patients (6.7 +/- 3.3 vs. 13.3 +/- 1.8% in controls, p < 0.0001). No significant difference could found in nitroglycerin-induced dilatation between controls (12.1 +/- 4.9%) and hypertensive elderly patients (10.2 +/- 6.8%, p = 0.5). On multivariate analysis, flow-mediated dilatation in hypertensive elderly patients was inversely related to aging (r = -0.37, p = 0.04) and mean blood pressure (r = -0.57, p = 0.03).


CONCLUSIONS
Our study showed decreased flow-mediated dilatation with aging even in the healthy controls, and further decline in flow-mediated dilatation in hypertensive elderly patients compared with controls. This impairment of flow-mediated dilatation in hypertensive elderly patients was related to age and mean blood pressure, indicating that aging and hypertension may independently impair endothelial function in the brachial artery of these patients.
Deng
Y B
YB
Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical University, Wuhan, China.
Wang
X F
XF
Le
G R
GR
Zhang
Q P
QP
Li
C L
CL
Zhang
Y G
YG
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D001916:Brachial Artery / Q000503:physiopathology; D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D016555:Matched-Pair Analysis; D008875:Middle Aged; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012044:Regression Analysis; D014463:Ultrasonography