Mandraffino et al. divided their hypertensive patients into two groups according to the presence of isolated arterial stiffening (AS) or AS and both carotid intima-media thickening and left ventricular hypertrophy; they found that hypertensives with more advanced vascular and cardiac involvement had fewer circulating CD34+ cells than hypertensives with earlier vascular lesions but more than normotensive controls [47]; moreover, they suggested that different EPCs phenotypes may behave differently in different subsets of hypertensive patients. The gene discussed is CD34; the disease is left ventricular hypertrophy.