RACIAL-DIFFERENCES IN THE PREVALENCE OF MICROALBUMINURIA IN HYPERTENSION

One hundred nine patients with essential hypertension and without eith er diabetes mellitus or clinical proteinuria were examined to investig ate possible racial differences in urinary albumin excretion rates, Th e black hypertensive patients were found to have significantly higher urinary albumin excretion rates compared with the white patients; in a ddition, a significantly greater proportion of the black patients than the white patients (32% v 14%) had microalbuminuria, defined as a uri nary albumin excretion rate greater than 30 mu g/min. These difference s could not be explained by age, blood pressure, body mass index, glyc osylated hemoglobin, serum creatinine, duration of hypertension, or ty pe of hypertension treatment, Hypertensive renal failure occurs six to 18 times more frequently in blacks than in whites; to our knowledge, these data are the first to indicate that microalbuminuria may be more prevalent during the course of hypertension in black patients and thu s may be an early marker for end-organ damage susceptibility among hyp ertensive patients. (C) 1995 by the National Kidney Foundation, Inc.