Detection of masked uncontrolled hypertension (MUCH) that was defined for treated hypertensive individuals who had normal office blood pressure (BP) but elevated ambulatory BP remains largely challenging. Arterial stiffness is one of the leading risk markers for hypertension and can be clinically assessed by the cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI). This study aimed to evaluate the association between CAVI and MUCH. A total of 155 hypertensive patients were included with their office BP levels and ambulatory BP monitoring measurements, which were divided into controlled hypertension (CH), MUCH, and sustained uncontrolled hypertension (SUCH) groups, respectively. There were 48 patients with CH, 56 patients with MUCH, and 51 patients with SUCH. Both MUCH and SUCH groups had a significantly higher CAVI than the CH group (9.05 (8.20–9.91) vs. 8.33 (7.75–9.15), p = 0.017 , and 9.75 (8.35–10.50) vs. 8.33 (7.75–9.15), p = 0.002 , respectively). There was no significant difference in CAVI values between the MUCH and SUCH groups. Multinomial logistic regression analysis exhibited that compared with the CH group, increased CAVI levels were positively associated with the presence of MUCH and SUCH (OR 2.046, 95% CI (1.239–3.381), p = 0.005 ; OR 2.215, 95% CI (1.310–3.747), p = 0.003 ) after adjusting for confounders. However, there was a similar trend of the CAVI in the MUCH and SUCH groups (OR 0.924, 95% CI (0.629–1.356), p = 0.686 ). In summary, our findings support, for the first time, the novel notion that CAVI as an arterial stiffness parameter is an independent risk factor for MUCH, being equally important to MUCH and SUCH. When the assessed CAVI is high in hypertensive patients with normotensive office BP levels, it is necessary to further investigate with a 24 h ambulatory BP monitoring to estimate the longstanding BP control. CAVI may be used as a noninvasive indicator to identify patients with MUCH earlier.

Background In recent years, palliative care has gradually developed in mainland China. Since 2018, primary palliative care education has been carried out in the department of geriatrics at Beijing Tongren Hospital. This study aimed to explore the changes to the intensity of end-of-life care in hospitalized older adults before and after the implementation of primary palliative care education. Methods A retrospective study was conducted. 203 decedents were included from Beijing Tongren Hospital’s department of geriatrics between January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2019. Patients were split into two cohorts with regards to the start of palliative care education. Patient demographics and clinical characteristics as well as analgesia use, other medical resources use and provision of life-sustaining treatments were compared between the two groups. We used a chi-square test to compare categorical variables, a t test to compare continuous variables with normal distributions and a Mann–Whitney U test for continuous variables with skewed distributions. Results Of the total participants in the study, 157(77.3%) patients were male. The median age was 88 (interquartile range; Q1-Q3 83–93) and the majority of patients (N = 172, 84.7%) aged 80 years or older. The top 3 causes of death were malignant solid tumor (N = 74, 36.5%), infectious disease (N = 74, 36.5%), and cardiovascular disease (N = 23, 11.3%). Approximately two thirds died of non-cancer diseases. There was no significant difference in age, gender, cause of death and functional status between the two groups (p > 0.05). After primary palliative care education, pain controlling drugs were used more (p < 0.05), fewer patients received electric defibrillation, bag mask ventilation and vasopressors ( p༜0.05). There was no change in the length of hospitalization, intensive care admissions, polypharmacy, use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, blood infusions, albumin infusions, nasogastric/nasoenteric tubes, parenteral nutrition, renal replacement and mechanical ventilation (p > 0.05). Conclusions Primary palliative care education promotes symptom control and DNR implementation. In the future, more efforts should be put on education about symptom assessment, prognostication, advance care planning, code status discussion with particular focus on patients with end stage non-cancer diseases.