Prediabetes, Malignant Ventricular Hypertrophy and Stroke: The SPRINT Trial

Prediabetes and left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) are common risk factors in adults with hypertension. Whether their coexistence, particularly in the presence of subclinical myocardial injury or stress (malignant LVH), confers a heightened stroke risk is unknown.

We analysed 8367 hypertensive adults without diabetes or prior stroke (mean age: 68 ± 9.4 years, 36.8% women, 39.8% with prediabetes) from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT). Prediabetes was defined as fasting plasma glucose 100-125 mg/dL. Malignant LVH was defined as electrocardiographic LVH (Cornell voltage product > 2436 mm·ms) with elevated high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (≥ 6 ng/L in men, ≥ 4 ng/L in women) or N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (≥ 125 pg/mL). The primary outcome was incident stroke. Cox proportional hazards models estimated hazard ratios (HRs) across categories of glycemic status and malignant LVH.

During a median follow-up of 3.3 years, 116 participants developed stroke. Compared with normoglycemic individuals without malignant LVH, adjusted HRs for stroke were 1.37 (95% CI, 0.88-2.12) for prediabetes alone, 1.94 (95% CI, 1.06-3.53) for malignant LVH alone, and 3.07 (95% CI, 1.66-5.70) for both prediabetes and malignant LVH. The stroke risk was also elevated for prediabetes combined with LVH plus myocardial injury (HR, 3.71; 95% CI, 2.00-6.88) or myocardial stress (HR, 2.84; 95% CI, 1.44-5.58). Results were consistent using alternate LVH definitions.

Among hypertensive adults, the coexistence of prediabetes and malignant LVH substantially increased stroke risk. Integrating metabolic status with cardiac biomarkers may improve cerebrovascular risk stratification.