Arterial Stiffness Is Associated With Basal Ganglia Enlarged Perivascular Spaces and Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Load.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: We assessed whether the load of cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) and its individual markers, including lacunes, white matter hyperintensities, microbleeds, and enlarged perivascular spaces (EPVS), are associated with arterial stiffness. METHODS: We evaluated cSVD markers in a cohort of 782 hypertensive individuals without history of stroke or dementia. The load of the disease was calculated using an ordinal scale ranging from 0 to 4 (1 point was given for each of the 4 markers examined). The arterial stiffness was tested by measuring the carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity with an oscillometric automatic device. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants (49.6% women) was 62.7±5.4 years, and the mean systolic/diastolic blood pressure was 142.9/77.3 mm Hg (55.5% of the participants had poor blood pressure control). We found 7.2% cases with lacunes, 6.4% with microbleeds, 6.7% with extensive white matter hyperintensities, 24.5% with extensive basal ganglia EPVS, and 40.1% with extensive EPVS in the centrum semiovale. Regarding the cSVD load, 19.7% of the participants scored 1, 6.5% scored 2, and 1.4% scored ≥3. The median carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity was 10.5 m/s (interquartile range, 9.2-11.9) and was associated with lacunes (odds ratio per carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity SD increase, 1.51; 95% confidence interval, 1.13-2.03), extensive basal ganglia EPVS (odds ratio, 1.39; 95% confidence interval, 1.16-1.67), and cSVD load (common odds ratio, 1.42; 95% confidence interval, 1.19-1.68). CONCLUSIONS: We found that, in a cohort of hypertensive individuals, the arterial stiffness is associated with the total load of the cSVD, especially with lacunes and basal ganglia EPVS.

Dementia Rating Scale-2 normative data for middle-and older-aged Castilian speaking Spaniards.

OBJECTIVES: The Dementia Rating Scale-2 (DRS-2) is frequently used as a dementia screening tool in clinical and research settings in Spain. The present study describes DRS-2 Total and subscale scores in community-dwelling Spaniards, aged 50-71, and provides normative data for its use in Castilian Spanish-speaking individuals. METHODS: The sample consisted of 798 individuals who participated in an observational study on essential hypertension. Mean age was 62.8 years (SD = 5.4), mean education was 8.6 years (SD = 3.4) with 47.9% females. Almost all of them were receiving blood pressure-lowering drugs (93%) and most of them had fairly well-managed blood pressure control (M systolic/diastolic blood pressure = 142.3/77.0 ± 16.0/9.2 mm Hg). We applied a previously described method of data normalization from the Mayo's Older Americans Normative Studies to obtain the Castilian Spanish DRS-2 norms. RESULTS: Worse performance on Total and subscale scores was associated with older age (p < .05) and fewer years of education (p < .001). Women obtained lower raw Total scores than men (131.68 ± 7.2 vs. 133.10 ± 6.90, p < .005), but had fewer years of education (7.96 ± 3.33 vs. 9.17 ± 3.45, p < .001). This gender difference disappeared after correcting for age and years of education. Total and subscale scores are presented adjusted by age, and normative data are shown for Total scores adjusted by age and years of education. CONCLUSIONS: These norms are useful for studying cognitive status and cognitive decline in research and clinical settings in Castilian Spanish-speaking populations.

Short-Term Blood Pressure Variability Relates to the Presence of Subclinical Brain Small Vessel Disease in Primary Hypertension.

Blood pressure (BP) variability is associated with stroke risk, but less is known about subclinical cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD). We aimed to determine whether CSVD relates to short-term BP variability independently of BP levels and also, whether they improve CSVD discrimination beyond clinical variables and office BP levels. This was a cohort study on asymptomatic hypertensives who underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging and 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring. Office and average 24-hour, daytime and nighttime BP levels, and several metrics of BP variability (SD, weighted SD, coefficient of variation, and average real variability [ARV]) were calculated. Definition of CSVD was based on the presence of lacunar infarcts and white matter hyperintensity grades. Multivariate analysis and integrated discrimination improvement were performed to assess whether BP variability and levels were independently associated with CSVD and improved its discrimination. Four hundred eighty-seven individuals participated (median age, 64; 47% women). CSVD was identified in 18.9%, related to age, male sex, diabetes mellitus, use of treatment, ambulatory BP monitoring-defined BP levels, and ARV of systolic BP at any period. The highest prevalence (33.7%) was found in subjects with both 24-hour BP levels and ARV elevated. BP levels at any period and ARV (24 hours and nocturnal) emerged as independent predictors of CSVD, and discrimination was incrementally improved although not to a clinically significant extent (integrated discrimination improvement, 5.31%, 5.17% to 5.4%). Ambulatory BP monitoring-defined BP levels and ARV of systolic BP relate to subclinical CSVD in hypertensive individuals.

Investigating silent strokes in hypertensives: a magnetic resonance imaging study (ISSYS): rationale and protocol design.

BACKGROUND: Silent brain infarcts are detected by neuroimaging in up to 20% of asymptomatic patients based on population studies. They are five times more frequent than stroke in general population, and increase significantly both with advancing age and hypertension. Moreover, they are independently associated with the risk of future stroke and cognitive decline.Despite these numbers and the clinical consequences of silent brain infarcts, their prevalence in Mediterranean populations is not well known and their role as predictors of future cerebrovascular and cardiovascular events in hypertensive remains to be determined.ISSYS (Investigating Silent Strokes in Hypertensives: a magnetic resonance imaging study) is an observational cross-sectional and longitudinal study aimed to: 1- determine the prevalence of silent cerebrovascular infarcts in a large cohort of 1000 hypertensives and to study their associated factors and 2-to study their relationship with the risk of future stroke and cognitive decline. METHODS/DESIGN: Cohort study in a randomly selected sample of 1000 participants, hypertensive aged 50 to 70 years old, with no history of previous stroke or dementia.On baseline all participants will undergo a brain MRI to determine the presence of brain infarcts and other cerebrovascular lesions (brain microbleeds, white matter changes and enlarged perivascular spaces) and will be also tested to determine other than brain organ damage (heart-left ventricular hypertrophy, kidney-urine albumin to creatinine ratio, vessels-pulse wave velocity, ankle brachial index), in order to establish the contribution of other subclinical conditions to the risk of further vascular events. Several sub-studies assessing the role of 24 hour ambulatory BP monitoring and plasma or genetic biomarkers will be performed.Follow-up will last for at least 3 years, to assess the rate of further stroke/transient ischemic attack, other cardiovascular events and cognitive decline, and their predictors. DISCUSSION: Improving the knowledge on the frequency and determinants of these lesions in our setting might help in the future to optimize treatments or establish new preventive strategies to minimize clinical and socioeconomic consequences of stroke and cognitive decline.