Intensifying Treatment in Patients with Stage 1 Hypertension

Evidence that treating patients with stage 1 systolic hypertension (systolic blood pressure [SBP], 140–159 mm Hg) improves health outcomes is limited. Furthermore, optimal time intervals between measurement of elevated BP, dose escalation or adding antihypertensive medications, and follow-up BP measurement are unknown. In this study, researchers used a U.K. primary care research database to determine the optimal SBP goal above which medication intensification (increasing dose of current antihypertensive medication or adding new medication) is helpful and the relations between delays in medication intensification and adverse cardiovascular events or death.

During a median follow-up of 37 months, 11% of 89,000 adults with hypertension experien…