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Clinical features

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Authoring team

The end-organ effects of hypertension may develop rapidly.

Symptoms may include:

  • visual disturbance
  • headache
  • breathlessness
  • hypertensive encephalopathy - for example, blunting of conscious level, coma, epileptic seizures

Signs may include:

  • acute elevation in blood pressure - with a diastolic greater than 130 mm Hg
  • hypertensive retinopathy - with haemorrhages and exudates visible on the retina
  • papilloedema - from cerebral oedema
  • renal failure - with proteinuria
  • cardiac failure
  • rarely, haemoglobinuria, jaundice and anaemia (microangiopathic haemolytic anaemia)

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