Abstract: To explore the incidence of extrarenal vascular complications of hypertension in aged patients with micro-albuminuria (MA) and to investigate the relationship between the urinary albumin excretion rate and the endothelial dysfunction. MethodsAged patients with hypertension were divided into two groups: the control group(n=177)(UAER＜30?μg/min) and the MA group(UAER 30-200μg/min) （n=179）. Incidence of retinopathy, peripheral neuropathy, and lower extremity arterial sclerosis occlusion were determined, also the levels of plasma vonWillebrand factor (vWF) and endothelin-1 (ET-1) were determined. ResultThe incidences of retinopathy, peripheral neuropathy and lower extremity arterial sclerosis occlusion were significantly higher in the MA group than those in the control group (P＜0.05). The plasma vWF level was markedly increased in the MA group (202.07±73.30)% as compared with that in the control group (118.95±46.72)% (P＜0.01), also the plasma ET-1 level in the MA group (79.13±14.04) μg·L^-1 was significantly higher than that in the control group (50.60±12.39) μg·L^-1. The plasma vWF level was significantly correlated with UAER (r=0.72，P＜0.01) and the plasma level of ET-1 was closely associated with vWF (r=0.69，P＜0.01). ConclusionAged patients with hypertension with MA have more remarkable endothelial dysfunction than those without MA. The increase of UAER is correlated with the degree of endothelial dysfunction.

Key words: Microalbuminuria, Endothelium, vascular, Aged, Hypertension