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Assessment of skin microcirculation in primary aldosteronism: impaired microvascular responses compared to essential hypertensives and normotensives

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 36, pages 1066–1071 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Primary aldosteronism (PA) is associated with considerably higher cardiovascular risk and increased prevalence of organ damage compared to essential hypertension (EH). Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) has emerged as a novel non-invasive tool to assess of skin microcirculation. Our aim was to evaluate skin microvascular function (SMF) using LSCI coupled with post-occlusive reactive hyperemia (PORH) in a group of PA patients (PAs) compared to patients with EH (EHs) and normotensive controls (NTs). We enrolled PAs, age- and gender-matched with EHs and NTs. All participants underwent SMF assessment by LSCI with PORH. We enrolled 109 participants including 29 PAs, 47 EHs, and 33 NTs. SMF was significantly impaired in PAs, including peak time (p < 0.001) and base to peak flux (p < 0.001) compared to NTs and EHs. Among PAs, plasma aldosterone showed a positive correlation with occlusion flux (p = 0.005). Our study shows for the first time that PAs present impaired SMF as assessed with LSCI coupled with PORH, not only compared to NTs but also compared to EHs with similar blood pressure profile. Further studies are needed to investigate the clinical impact of such alterations in terms of pathophysiology and cardiovascular risk prediction.

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Fig. 1: Comparison of skin microvascular function as assessed with LSCI in the three groups.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 3rd Department of Internal Medicine, Papageorgiou Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Eugenia Gkaliagkousi, Antonios Lazaridis, Panagiota Anyfanti, Areti Triantafyllou, Konstantinos Mastrogiannis & Stella Douma

  2. 2nd Propedeutic Department of Internal Medicine, Hippokrateio Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Konstantinos Stavropoulos, Konstantinos Imprialos & Michalis Doumas

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  1. Eugenia Gkaliagkousi
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  2. Antonios Lazaridis
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  3. Panagiota Anyfanti
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All authors contributed equally to this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Eugenia Gkaliagkousi.

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Gkaliagkousi, E., Lazaridis, A., Anyfanti, P. et al. Assessment of skin microcirculation in primary aldosteronism: impaired microvascular responses compared to essential hypertensives and normotensives. J Hum Hypertens 36, 1066–1071 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41371-021-00639-9

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