Clinical features
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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