Background: Hypertension is one of the leading causes of disability and mortality among cardiovascular diseases, so today new metabolic markers of cardiovascular risk are being actively studied. One of them is apelin-13. The objective was to assess the concentration of apelin-13 in patients with essential hypertension and frequent extrasystoles.

Material and methods: One hundred fifty six patients with stage 2 essential hypertension were examined. One hundred twenty four of them had frequent symptomatic extrasystoles, 32 patients had no arrhythmias and were considered as the comparison group. Thirty apparently healthy normotensive persons were considered as the control group. All patients underwent a complete clinical and anthropometric examination, blood pressure measurement, automatic daily blood pressure monitoring, daily electrocardiogram monitoring, echocardiography and the assessment of serum apelin-13 concentration.

Results: It was found that the concentration of apelin-13 in patients with hypertension was significantly lower compared to the control group. Moreover, the average content of apelin-13 was significantly (p = 0.02) lower in patients with extrasystole than in those without arrhythmia. The lowest concentration of apelin-13 was noticed in patients with ventricular arrhythmias.

Conclusion: The results confirm the existing assumptions about the protective role of apelin-13 in preventing the progression of cardiovascular diseases due to counteracting the increase in blood pressure and life-threatening arrhythmias.