Prevalence and Association of Microalbuminuria in Essential Hypertensive Patients

Background: Microalbuminuria in hypertension has been described as an early sign of kidney damage and a predictor for end stage renal disease and cardiovascular disease. Thus, it is of great importance to study urinary albumin creatinine ratio and progression of kidney disease in hypertensive patients. Aims: The present study was undertaken to find out the prevalence and association of microalbuminuria in newly diagnosed essential hypertension. Materials and Methods: Newly diagnosed essential hypertensive cases (n = 106) and normotensive controls (n = 106) were enrolled. Hypertension was defined according to Joint national committee-VII definitions. Microalbuminuria was measured using an U-Albumin (NycoCard, Norway) and adjusted for urine creatinine. Descriptive statistics and testing of hypothesis were used for the analysis using SPSS 16 software. Results: 51.88% of hypertension cases and 13.2% of normotensive controls had microalbuminuria in total population (odds ratio 7.086, P-value