ED 04-2 ASSESSMENT OF TARGET ORGAN DAMAGE DURING ANTI-HYPERTENSIVE TREATMENT: WHAT TO USE AND HOW FREQUENTLY WE SHOULD MEASURE.

Current guidelines recommend searching for asymptomatic target organ damage (TOD) in treated as well as in untreated hypertensive patients because that TOD is an intermediate stage in the continuum of cardiovascular diseases and because it is a determinant of patients' overall cardiovascular risk. Large amount of data demonstrated that target organ measures can predict cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. Nowadays, several non-invasive techniques are available and recommended to assess TOD. The clinical values and limitations of the TOD measures on heart, arteries, kidney and brain, including ECG- or echocardiogram- diagnosed LVH or other heart lesions, carotid intima-media thickness and plaques, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity and ankle-brachial index, microalbuminuria, and estimated glomerular filtration rate, fundoscopy and brain imaging will be discussed. The related recommendations of various guidelines on the assessment of TOD will be introduced.