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Vascular, cardiac and renal target organ damage associated to arterial hypertension: which noninvasive tools for detection?

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 34, pages 420–431 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

Arterial hypertension is a systemic condition characterized by elevated blood pressure in the vascular system. Despite the great effort of scientific community to sensitize population to the problem, enforcing the preventive and treatment measures, this condition continues to be responsible for a large portion of global mortality, as it represents one of the major modifiable risk factors of cardiovascular disease. The significant and substantial clinical implications of high blood pressure on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality are explained by the effect of hypertension on specific organs, particularly sensitive to the effects of changes in blood pressure, resulting cardiac remodeling, cerebrovascular disease, renal failure, atherosclerotic vascular disease, and retinopathy, hence the term “target organ damage”. The aim of this review is to give an overview of several noninvasive tools useful in the detection of organ damage related to arterial hypertension.

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Fig. 1: Pathophysiology of target organ damage on vessels, heart and kidney arterial hypertension (AH) related.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cardiological Unit, “Giovanni Paolo II” Hospital, Policoro, Italy

    Francesca Cortese, Andrea Andriani & Luigi Truncellito

  2. Cardiological Unit, Cardiovascular Disease Section, Department of Organ Trasplantation, University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Annagrazia Cecere, Federica Valente & Marco Matteo Ciccone

  3. IRCCS San Camillo Hospital, Venice, Italy

    Anna Maria Cortese

  4. Department of Biomedicine and Human Oncology, Pediatric Section, University “A.Moro” of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Paola Giordano

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  1. Francesca Cortese
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Cortese, F., Cecere, A., Maria Cortese, A. et al. Vascular, cardiac and renal target organ damage associated to arterial hypertension: which noninvasive tools for detection?. J Hum Hypertens 34, 420–431 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41371-020-0307-7

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