Association between complete blood-count-based inflammatory scores and hypertension in persons living with and without HIV in Zambia.

Abstract

BackgroundHypertension is a risk factor for cardiovascular events. Inflammation plays an important role in the development of essential hypertension. Studies assessing the association between complete blood count-based inflammatory scores (CBCIS) and hypertension are scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the relationship between CBCIS and hypertension among individuals with and without human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).MethodThis was a cross-sectional study among 344 participants at Serenje District Hospital and Serenje Urban Clinic. We used structured questionnaires to collect sociodemographic, clinical and laboratory characteristics. CBCIS included lymphocyte-monocyte ratio (LMR), neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), derived neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (d-NLR), and differential white blood cells. The primary outcome variable was hypertension defined as systolic and diastolic blood pressure higher than or equal to 140/90 mmHg. Logistic regression was used to estimate the association between hypertension and CBCIS in statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 22.0.ResultsThe participants had a median age of 32 years (interquartile range (IQR) 24-42) and 65.1% (n = 224) were female. The prevalence of hypertension was 10.5% (n = 36). Among those with hypertension, 55.6% (n = 20) were female and 44.4% (n = 16) were male. The CBCIS significantly associated with hypertension in people living with HIV (PLWH) was PLR (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 0.98; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.97-0.99, p = 0.01) while in people without HIV, AMC (AOR 15.40 95%CI 3.75-63.26), ANC (AOR 1.88 95%CI 1.05-3.36), WBC (AOR 0.52 95%CI 0.31-0.87) and PLR (AOR 0.98 95%CI 0.97-0.99) were the factors associated with hypertension. Compared to people without HIV, only WBC, ANC, NLR, and d-NLR were good predictors of hypertension among PLWH.ConclusionOur study indicates a notable HIV-status driven association between CBCIS and hypertension, suggesting the use of CBICS as potential biomarkers for hypertension risk with substantial implications for early detection and preventive measures.