Official Hypertension Recommendations Might Not Apply to Most Patients

The 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guideline for hypertension management, based largely on two major national trials (SPRINT [NEJM JW Gen Med Dec15 2015 and N Engl J Med 2015; 373:2174] and ACCORD [NEJM JW Gen Med Apr 15 2010 and N Engl J Med 2010; 362:1575]), revised treatment thresholds for intensive pharmacotherapy to include various blood pressure levels, depending on certain risk factors and other criteria (NEJM JW Gen Med Dec 15 2017 and J Am Coll Cardiol 2018; 71:127). Investigators sought to identify what proportion of all patients who meet the criteria for intensive pharmacotherapy would have been included in the ACCORD or SPRINT trials.

A U.S. national health and nutrition database was used to identi…