Isolated systolic hypertension in a cohort of type 2 diabetic patients.
OBJECTIVE
Previous studies of the adverse effects of isolated and borderline isolated systolic hypertension excluded or under-represented type 2 diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and role of isolated and borderline isolated systolic hypertension in a cohort of 3892 type 2 diabetic patients.


RESULTS
The hypertensive patients were classified as treated (n= 1806; 46.4%), untreated diastolic hypertension (n=407; 10.4%), untreated isolated systolic hypertension (n=166; 4.3%) and untreated borderline isolated systolic hypertension (n=625; 16%). A Cox proportional hazard model including several confounders showed that the patients with untreated isolated systolic hypertension were at significantly higher risk of hospital admissions due to cerebrovascular diseases than the normotensive and untreated diastolic hypertensive patients (HR=2.05; 95% CI: 1.2-3.4 and HR=1.97; 95%CI: 1.1-3.5, respectively). In the same model, borderline isolated systolic hypertension significantly correlated with admissions for cerebrovascular diseases in comparison with normotensive patients (HR=1.73; 95% CI: 1.2-2.6).


CONCLUSIONS
This is the first report concerning the prevalence of isolated and borderline isolated systolic hypertension in a large cohort of type 2 diabetic patients. The results are in line with population-based estimates. Our data show that isolated systolic hypertension is an independent predictor of hospital admissions due to cerebrovascular diseases.
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Turin, Turin, Italy. sbo@molinette.piemonte.it
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D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D001795:Blood Pressure Determination; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015897:Comorbidity; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D011336:Probability; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013599:Systole