Blood pressure 24-hour monitoring in assessment of aortic stiffness in older patients with arterial hypertension
Aim. The assessment of aortic stiffness by the data of 24-hour blood pressure monitoring in patients with arterial hypertension of older age. Material and methods. Totally 68 patients with AH studied of the age from 43 to 82 years old, of those 26 women and 26 healthy volunteers, comparable by the age, of those 14 women. Patients with AH and healthy persons were separated in to 3 subgroups by the age. Also those with AH were separated into 4 subgroups by the level of salt consumption. To everyone investigated we performed 24-hour blood pressure monitoring with mean daily systolic aortic blood pressure, pulse wave velocity in aorta and augmentation index in aorta; studied the amount of salt consumed. Results. It was found that aortic stiffness is higher in AH than in healthy same-agers. We found that with the age there is an increase of aortic augmentation index in aorta. It was also found that an increase in salt consumption up to 299 mmol per day of sodium is followed by an decreased augmentation index in aorta. Consumption of more than 300 mmol per day of sodium is related to an increase of augmentation index in aorta. Conclusion. Aortic stiffness increases with the age, and with the influence of hemodynamic factors (BP); increased salt consumption leads to decrease of aortic augmentation index and has dose-related effect.