Sun X, et al. - This study sought to illustrate the consequence of nutritional status on survival per Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score and Geriatric Nutritional Risk Index (GNRI) in patients with hypertension, over 80 years of age. Nutritional status assessed via CONUT was discovered to be a precise predictor of all-cause mortality 90 days postadmission. The nutritional status analysis could yield additional prognostic information in hypertensive patients.

Methods

• The scheme of this research was a prospective follow-up study.
• The eligible candidates constituted 336 hypertensive patients over 80 years old.
• The outcome measures were the recording of all-cause deaths as Kaplan-Meier curves to inspect the link between CONUT and all-cause mortality at follow-up.
• Cox regression models evaluated the prognostic value of CONUT and GNRI for all-cause mortality in the 90-day period after admission.

Results

• The enrollees with higher CONUT scores displayed higher mortality within 90 days after admission (1.49%, 6.74%, 15.38%, respectively, Χ²=30.92, p=0.000).
• Surviving patients presented with higher body mass index (24.25±3.05 vs 24.25±3.05, p=0.012), haemoglobin (123.78±17.05 vs 115.07±20.42, p=0.040) and albumin levels, as well as lower fasting blood glucose (6.90±2.48 vs 8.24±3.51, p=0.010). Higher GRNI score (99.42±6.55 vs 95.69±7.77, p=0.002) and lower CONUT (3.13±1.98 vs 5.14±2.32) reflected better nutritional status.
• Kaplan-Meier curves suggested that survival rates were substantially worse in the high-CONUT group compared with the low-CONUT group (Χ¹ =13.372, p=0.001).
• Cox regression disclosed an increase in HR with increasing CONUT risk (from normal to moderate to severe). HRs (95% CI) for 3-month mortality was 1.458 (95% CI 1.102 to 1.911).
• In both respiratory tract infection and ‘other reason’ groups, only CONUT served as a sufficient predictor for all-cause mortality (HR=1.284, 95% CI 1.013 to 1.740, p=0.020 and HR=1.841, 95% CI 1.117 to 4.518, p=0.011). CONUT higher than 3.0 speculated the all-cause mortality with a sensitivity of 77.8% and a specificity of 64.7% (area under the curve=0.778, p<0.001).
• This was illustrated by the receiver operating characteristic.