Methods for the assessment of microcirculation in patients with hypertension

Abstract

Arterial hypertension (HT) is one of the most common lifestyle diseases worldwide, including Poland. According to World Health Organization, as many as 1.28 billion adults worldwide were suffering from HT in 2011 -a half were unaware of their disease. It is claimed that approximately 10 million of deaths annually are the result of improperly high blood pressure values (BP) [1]. It is estimated that the number of HT patients will exceed 1.5 billion by 2025. Therefore, it classifies HT as a major global healthcare problem [2].According to the WOBASZ II study, more than 40% of the adult Polish population were diagnosed with HT. A constantly increasing trend of newly di-