Vascular health years after a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy: The EPOCH study

Preeclampsia is associated with a two-fold increase in a woman's lifetime risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), but the reasons for this association are uncertain. The objective of this study was to examine the associations between vascular health and a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy among women ≥ 2 years postpartum.

Pre-menopausal women with a history of either a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy (cases: preeclampsia or gestational hypertension) or a normotensive pregnancy (controls) were enrolled. Participants were assessed for standard ASCVD risk factors and underwent vascular testing, including measurements of blood pressure, endothelial function, and carotid artery ultrasound. The primary outcomes were blood pressure, ASCVD risk, reactive hyperemia index measured by EndoPAT and carotid intima-medial thickness. The secondary outcomes were augmentation index normalized to 75 beats per minute and pulse wave amplitude measured by EndoPAT, and carotid elastic modulus and carotid beta-stiffness measured by carotid ultrasound.

Participants had a mean age of 40.7 years and were 5.7 years since their last pregnancy. In bivariate analyses, cases (N = 68) were more likely than controls (N = 71) to have hypertension (18% vs 4%, P = .034), higher calculated ASCVD risk (0.6 vs 0.4, P = .02), higher blood pressures (systolic: 118.5 vs 111.6 mm Hg, P = .0004; diastolic: 75.2 vs 69.8 mm Hg, P = .0004), and higher augmentation index values (7.7 vs 2.3, P = .03). They did not, however, differ significantly in carotid intima-media thickness (0.5 vs 0.5, P = .29) or reactive hyperemia index (2.1 vs 2.1, P = .93), nor in pulse wave amplitude (416 vs 326, P = .11), carotid elastic modulus (445 vs 426, P = .36), or carotid beta stiffness (2.8 vs 2.8, P = .86).

Women with a prior hypertensive disorder of pregnancy had higher ASCVD risk and blood pressures several years postpartum, but did not have more endothelial dysfunction or subclinical atherosclerosis.