GDV Analysis of Arterial Hypertension

Objectives: To study potentials of Electrophotonic ‐ Gas Discharge Visualization (EPC/GDV) analysis for detecting patients with arterial hypertension of different degree of severity in the course of population screening. Design: To assess dependence of the most qualitative patient grouping on one of the recognized arterial hypertension (AH) classifications, discriminative functions for detecting patients with different degrees and stages of AH as well as the risk of cardio‐vascular complications were calculated. Dependence of discriminative functions on patients’ gender was studied. The model of logistic regression for detecting patients with different degrees of arterial hypertension was built. Procedures: Participants were 603 patients, aged from 18 to 83, 265 males and 338 females. All participants were classified into groups according to degree and stage of arterial hypertension and possible risk of cardio‐vascular complications in the nearest 10 years. In the course of the study the following GDV parameters were analyzed: image area, normalized area, intensity, spectrum width, brightness and fractality. Results: The study resulted in calculation of discriminative functions for detecting patients with various degrees, stages of arterial hypertension and risk of cardio‐vascular complications. The number of diagnostic parameters increased in accordance with the degree of AH manifestations from 8 to 22, and specificity and sensitivity of the obtained functions made up from 70% to 80%. Classification of patients according to gender increased diagnostic accuracy by 5‐9%. Conclusions: Reliable differences between the control group (healthy patients) and groups with various degrees and stages of AH were calculated with sufficiently high accuracy which allowed to include Electrophotonic ‐ Gas Discharge Visualization technique into the population screening. INTRODUCTION Arterial hypertension (AH) is the most common chronic disease in the world and one of the most serious medico‐social problems. 30% of adult population of industrial countries present with elevated degree of arterial pressure and only 12‐15% of population having stable arterial hypertension. The disease is a common cause of life‐endangering acute heart (myocardial infarction) and brain (cerebral stroke) diseases including people of the working age. About 50% of all fatal cases from cardio‐vascular diseases fall on arterial hypertension. It is the underlying cause of numerous chronic diseases of the heart, brain, kidneys, eyes and other so‐called target organs. Even today, when doctors have sufficient number of potent antihypertensive at their disposal average life span of the patients with arterial hypertension is not high. Arterial pressure often elevates among adolescents, the disease dramatically getting younger along with most cardiovascular diseases. Hypertension and atherosclerosis are turning into important cause of premature death. There is no doubt that prophylaxis and treatment of arterial hypertension are most effective at its early stages and not at the chronic stage with organic changes. It is disappointing that in many cases the onset of the disease stays unseen as early rises in arterial pressure (AP) are not always associated with subjective symptoms which makes arterial hypertension a disease difficult to diagnose at the early stages. So the early diagnostics of arterial hypertension and a special program of its further development prevention present an important scientific and practical problem . The focus today is on methods allowing detecting early changes characteristic for arterial hypertension. Public health service needs highly sensitive non‐invasive screening tests for AH.