Cardiovascular risk assessment in prediabetic patients in a hypertensive population: The role of cystatin C

•Prediabetes is a condition that can increase the cardiovascular risk among hypertensive patients.•Cox regression survival analysis identified age and cystatin C as prognostic features for cardiovascular disease among prediabetic, hypertensive patients.•Impaired fasting glucose should be considered as a relevant risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and not just as a precursor to type 2 diabetes.•These results should address the prevention of cardiovascular disease in prediabetic patients. The aim of our study was to determine whether prediabetes increases cardiovascular (CV) risk compared to the non-prediabetic patients in our hypertensive population. Once this was achieved, the objective was to identify relevant CV prognostic features among prediabetic individuals. We included hypertensive 1652 patients. The primary outcome was a composite of incident CV events: cardiovascular death, stroke, heart failure and myocardial infarction. We performed a Cox proportional hazard regression to assess the CV risk of prediabetic patients compared to non-prediabetic and to produce a survival model in the prediabetic cohort. The risk of developing a CV event was higher in the prediabetic cohort than in the non-prediabetic cohort, with a hazard ratio (HR) = 1.61, 95% CI 1.01–2.54, p = 0.04. Our Cox proportional hazard model selected age (HR = 1.04, 95% CI 1.02–1.07, p