Urinary albumin excretion in elderly patients with white coat hypertension

The so-called white coat effect occurs in about 42% of elderly patients. Th is phenomenon leads to several problems in treatment and may also cause ren al disease. One of the most frequently controlled parameters is microalbumi nuria, an index of renal damage. The present case-control study intended to evaluate the urinary excretion of albumin in elderly patients suffering fr om white coat hypertension, and comparing their data to those of normotensi ve subjects. In addition, the study searched for correlations between album inuria and various clinical and ambulatory blood pressure values. A total o f 258 patients were enrolled, but after screening, only 129 were considered ; 13 of the latter were further excluded because of problems encountered du ring ambulatory monitoring of arterial blood pressure. Therefore, 116 hyper tensive subjects were included in the study. This pool of hypertensive pati ents was compared to a normotensive group of 33 subjects. The results have shown the occurrence of white coat effect in 25% of cases, and the microalb uminuria of these patients was statistically not significantly different fr om that of the normotensive group of patients. The microalbuminuria correla ted only with ambulatory systolic blood pressure measured during the day. ( C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.