Katia Kteich, Maria R. Karam, Marouan Zoghbi, Mabel Aoun
Abstract
Hypertension is a key contributor to the global cardiovascular disease burden. In 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) hypertension management guideline suggested baseline laboratory tests for patients with newly diagnosed hypertension but noted limited evidence in primary care contexts.
Introduction
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cardiovascular diseases represent the leading cause of mortality worldwide. Three-quarters of deaths in low- and middle-income countries are caused by heart diseases [1].
Materials and methods
This is a multicenter, retrospective study including all patients with newly diagnosed hypertension in three large Lebanese primary healthcare centers (PHCCs) between 2015 and 2020, followed until 2022.
Results
In one of the three centers, all medical records were manually reviewed due to the absence of ICD10 classification. Over a 5-year period, 1648 patients were seen in this center, of whom 285 had the diagnosis of hypertension.
Discussion
This study revealed that the incidence of hypertension is 8.3% in primary care settings. Approximately 25% of these patients with new-onset hypertension have isolated hypertension, without any other known comorbidities.
Conclusion
Our study highlights the critical role of early baseline laboratory testing in newly diagnosed hypertensive patients and supports routine baseline laboratory testing for all these hypertensive patients.
Citation: Kteich K, Karam MR, Zoghbi M, Aoun M (2025) The impact of baseline laboratory tests on the management of new-onset hypertension in primary care: A pilot study. PLoS One 20(5): e0324743. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324743
Editor: Amirmohammad Khalaji, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF
Received: December 18, 2024; Accepted: April 29, 2025; Published: May 29, 2025
Copyright: © 2025 Kteich et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.
Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
