Onset of hypertension during pregnancy is associated with long-term worse blood pressure control and adverse cardiac remodeling

• Published in: Journal of the American Society of Hypertension Vol. 8; no. 11; p. 827
• Main Authors: Mesquita, Roberto F, Reis, Muriel, Beppler, Ana Paula, Bellinazzi, Vera Regina, Mattos, Sandra S, Lima-Filho, José L, Cipolli, José A, Coelho-Filho, Otavio R, Pio-Magalhães, José A, Sposito, Andrei C, Matos-Souza, José R, Nadruz, Jr, Wilson
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01-11-2014
• Subjects: Adult; Antihypertensive Agents - therapeutic use; Blood Pressure Determination; Chi-Square Distribution; Confidence Intervals; Cross-Sectional Studies; Echocardiography, Doppler; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Humans; Hypertension, Pregnancy-Induced - diagnosis; Hypertension, Pregnancy-Induced - drug therapy; Linear Models; Long-Term Care; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Outcome; Reference Values; Retrospective Studies; Risk Assessment; Severity of Illness Index; Statistics, Nonparametric; Time Factors; Ventricular Dysfunction, Left - diagnostic imaging; Ventricular Dysfunction, Left - epidemiology; Ventricular Remodeling - physiology; Young Adult; Echocardiography; left ventricular; concentric hypertrophy; hypertensive pregnancy disorders
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jash.2014.09.006
• EISSN: 1878-7436

Up to 20% of women with hypertensive pregnancy disorders might persist with chronic hypertension. This study compared clinical and echocardiographic features between women whose hypertension began as hypertensive pregnancy disorders (PH group) and women whose diagnosis of hypertension did not occur during pregnancy (NPH group). Fifty PH and 100 NPH women were cross-sectionally evaluated by clinical, laboratory, and echocardiography analysis, and the groups were matched by duration of hypertension. PH exhibited lower age (46.6 ± 1.4 vs. 65.3 ± 1.1 years; P < .001), but higher systolic (159.8 ± 3.9 vs. 148.0 ± 2.5 mm Hg; P = .009) and diastolic (97.1 ± 2.4 vs. 80.9 ± 1.3 mm Hg; P < .001) blood pressure than NPH, although used more antihypertensive classes (3.4 ± 0.2 vs. 2.6 ± 0.1; P < .001). Furthermore, PH showed higher left ventricular wall thickness and increased prevalence of concentric hypertrophy than NPH after adjusting for age and blood pressure. In conclusion, this study showed that PH may exhibit worse blood pressure control and adverse left ventricular remodeling compared with NPH.