Objective: To assess the risk of mortality associated with hypertension and microalbuminuria in patients with acute myocardial infarction.
Design: A prospective study.
Setting: Intensive care units in three Italian general hospitals.
Patients: In total 309 consecutive patients (including 97 women) aged 66.6 +/- 12.5 years, admitted to hospital for acute myocardial infarction.
Main outcome measures: Albumin excretion rate measured by radioimmunoassay of 24 h urine samples, on the first and third days after admission to hospital. In-hospital mortality rate among the patients stratified according to their history of hypertension and albumin excretion rate.
Results: Of the patients, 147 had histories of hypertension. Forty-four per cent of the normotensive and 43% of the hypertensive subjects had microalbuminuria on the first day. On the third day the percentages were 25 and 29%, respectively. Twenty-two patients died before discharge from hospital. Patients were divided into four groups according to whether they had microalbuminuria or not and likewise for hypertension. Mortality rate among the subjects with hypertension and microalbuminuria combined was greater than those among the other three groups (P < 0.0001 on the first and third days). The relative hazard ratio was 11.7 on the first day, and 15.6 on the third day. In a multivariate Cox's model hypertension and microalbuminuria combined had a greater predictive power for mortality than either variable alone. Killip class, age, and creatinine kinases MB level were other significant predictors of death.
Conclusions: These results show that the combination of hypertension and microalbuminuria is associated with a greater risk of in-hospital mortality among subjects with acute myocardial infarction, independently of degree of heart failure and other possible confounders.