The objective of this study is to assess the impact of masked arterial hypertension on microvascular complications and echocardiographic parameters in patients with type 2 diabetes who are known to be normotensives.

It's cross-sectional study on 117 known normotensive patients with type 2 diabetes. Microalbuminuria assay, cardiac ultrasound and blood pressure Holter were performed.

Masked hypertension was present in 39% of patients (n=45) with no significant difference in terms of age, duration of diabetes, smoking, BMI, serum creatinine, glycemic or lipid profile.

Microalbiminuria was increasing in the masked hypertensive group (21microg/min [2.5–1.5] vs. 9.1microg/min [1.0 to 0.22], P=0.001), as well as the septum interventricular (1.1±0.10 vs. 0.82±0.9cm, P=0.015) and the posterior wall (0.12±0.8 vs. 0.90±0.10cm, P=0.005).

Diabetics type 2 patients with masked hypertension have higher microalbiminuria as well as left ventricular hypertophy compared to normotensive patients. Blood pressure Holter then seems to be necessary in order to detect this high-risk group and thus take preventive measures.